Washington (CNN) Cindy McCain, the wife of late Sen. John McCain, apologized this week after she reported what she believed to be a child trafficking attempt by a "woman of a different ethnicity than the child" -- only to be refuted by the police.

"At Phoenix Sky Harbor, I reported an incident that I thought was trafficking," McCain wrote on Twitter Wednesday. "I commend the police officers for their diligence. I apologize if anything else I have said on this matter distracts from 'if you see something, say something.'"

During an interview with a local radio station on Monday, McCain was discussing human trafficking at the Super Bowl, when she later claimed that she stopped a child trafficking attempt at Phoenix airport last week.

"I came in from a trip I'd been on and I spotted — it looked odd — it was a woman of a different ethnicity than the child, this little toddler she had, and something didn't click with me," McCain told Arizona radio station KTAR. McCain herself has a daughter of a different race — she and her late husband adopted their daughter Bridget from Bangladesh.

She added, "I went over to the police and told them what I saw, and they went over and questioned her. And by God, she was trafficking that kid."

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