The plot thickens around 16-year-old German national Laura L. who went missing from her home in Rio by Patras last week. Police investigation has found strong indications that the girl disappeared from the family home on her won will and with a plan developed quite some time ago.
Last Thursday, January 8, she traveled to the suburb of Zografou in Athens with a taxi she had booked the previous night, thus calling from a friend’s mobile phone.
Her school bag was found by a pedestrian in the said suburb but there is no other trace of her in the area.
CCTV footage shows Laura L in Athens – via newsit.gr
According to reports on Tuesday, the girl was seeking ways to get on hold of cash money and had sold some of her mother’s jewelry in the last days probably to a pawnshop. .
She deleted all her social media accounts and sold for 200 euros her own mobile phone to the elderly man she was seen with before she went missing. The man has reportedly appeared to police after videos of him with Laura were published on internet on several websites.
The taxi driver who took her to Athens reportedly said he did not realized that she was a minor but he thought she was a student, one of the many in Patras.
According to her friend, the missing girl had claimed that she was abused by her father when the family lived in Germany and that she wanted to travel to her brother who was leaving there.
Her family that moved to Greece from Germany three years ago deny the abuse allegation.
According to Alpha TV, the girl has a step brother living in Germany.
The TV channel reported further that Greek authorities are working together with their German colleagues seeking contact to the girl’s step-brother and also information about the reasons Laura had spent some time in a social facility before the family moved to Greece.
Authorities investigate whether the missing girl has already left Greece for Germany or some other country even with a fake passport.
Her parents are highly concerned and appealed to missing Laura that there won’t be “any punishment” if she returns home or at least give them a sign that she is alive and well.
The question remains who helped the teenager to develop her escape plan as she speak only broken Greek and suspicion is high that she would hardly know suburbs in the Greek capital.
The Amber Alert announcement issued on January 8, is still valid on January 13, 2026.
Laura L. is 1.60 m tall, weighs 50 kg, has blond-red hair and blue eyes.
On the day she went missing, she was wearing a blue jacket, black jeans, black adidas sneakers with white stripes and was carrying a gray school bag (the bag that found in Zografou suburb of Athens).
