There have been more than 300 reported sightings of boys matching Ben's description, both on the Greek mainland and on Greek islands. Most were reported shortly after his disappearance during 1991 to 1992. In December 1995, Stratos Bakirtzis, a private investigator, found a blond boy, aged around six years old, living with a Romani family in a camp located in Salonika, Greece. Bakirtzis told Greek TV network ANT1 that the child said he had been "given to the gypsies because his parents did not want him." Police from Veria took the boy into custody and determined he was not Ben Needham. Ioannis Panousis, Veria's chief of police, said the child's birth certificate was authentic and that the child's natural father was currently serving a prison sentence and had left him in the care of the Romani couple.