The 18-year search for missing toddler Madeleine McCann has taken a new turn as German police have begun fresh searches in the area between Praia da Luz and the prime suspect’s former home
German police are reportedly “hoping for a breakthrough” in the Madeleine McCann case as they begin a new search prompted by a recent tip-off.
Madeleine vanished in 2007 aged three, while on holiday with her family in the resort of Praia da Luz in Portugal. Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, went out to dinner with friends a few hundred yards away and left her sleeping in a room at their accommodation with her toddler twin siblings.
But when they returned to the apartment, Madeleine was gone. For the past 18 years, they have tirelessly campaigned to find their daughter and get answers on what happened on that fateful night of May 3. The Metropolitan Police has spent more than £13million on the case, dubbed Operation Grange, to date.
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Now, just as German and Portuguese investigators begin fresh searches in the area, new information has reportedly come to light following the trial of Christian Brueckner, who German prosecutors say is the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance. Brueckner, who is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for the rape of an elderly woman at her home in Praia da Luz in 2005, has denied any involvement.
Where are police searching?
The operation began yesterday as German teams armed with shovels and strimmers began sweeping the area between Praia da Luz, where the three-year-old vanished on May 3 2007, and a house near the holiday resort where prime suspect Brueckner used to live.
They appeared to be focusing their attention on an abandoned farmhouse surrounded by partially collapsed outbuildings, and have recovered samples of potential evidence. Officers were seen removing mounds of earth before taking it away in plastic bags for further examination. A group of firemen were also spotted draining an abandoned well.
The searches are the first in Portugal for more than two years following a near-week-long operation involving Portuguese, German and police officers at a remote dam. The May 2023 probe at Arade Dam, described at the time as Brueckner’s ‘little paradise’, came to nothing.
They were the first major searches in Portugal in nine years following an earlier June 2014 operation when British police were given permission for digs in Praia da Luz that involved sniffer dogs trained in detecting bodies and ground-penetrating radar.
New clue
On Monday, Portuguese police closed off dirt roads in the area where searches are believed to be taking place, and tents have been set up in the nearby Atalaia area, where Brueckner once lived in a cottage. According to The Sun, the new searches will involve radar equipment that can scan beneath the ground and will focus on trenches that were reportedly dug around the time of the little girl’s disappearance.
An investigating source told The Sun: “Following Brueckner’s trial last year, someone contacted them with theories on where anyone who took Madeleine might’ve dumped her. They told cops about trenches that were dug in Praia at the time Madeleine disappeared, and the house where Brueckner had lived on the edge of the village.
“Of course, all of these places have been searched over and over again, but now they have a new weapon in their ground-scanning radar. It means they don’t need to dig for the sake of it. But as soon as they spot anything of interest they are ready to excavate and check it.”
The source added: “With time running out they are praying they get a breakthrough.” The fresh investigation will see around 30 German police officers, including forensic experts, scour the area for any trace of Maddie.
German authorities said they are receiving support from Portuguese law enforcement, while the Portuguese police said that searches will be carried out between June 2 and 6 in the municipality of Lagos, in accordance with a European investigation order. A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said: “We are aware of the searches being carried by the BKA (German federal police) in Portugal as part of their investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
“The Metropolitan Police Service is not present at the search, we will support our international colleagues where necessary.” German police reportedly believe the tip-off could be their final chance to find vital forensic evidence.
The investigation source added: “German cops know it is now or never so they need to push ahead with every credible tip they have.” They last carried out searches in 2023 near the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 30 miles from Praia da Luz.
Why is this search different?
Former Met Detective Chief Inspector Peter Kirkham shared his expert insight on the searches, explaining what makes them different to the ones carried out previously.
The main difference is that on this occasion, officers are not just working from the crime scene but working back from a possible suspect – Christian Brueckner – too,” he wrote in a piece for The Mirror.
“This provides a very different context for the investigation as a whole, and for the searches in particular, but the importance of this is often overlooked.
“Detectives investigating a serious crime are usually engaged in what is known as a reactive investigation: a crime happens and officers react to it by following lines of enquiry which could explain how it came to happen. Searches connected with a reactive investigation tend to be focused on the crime scene as at least some part of the crime must have happened right there.”
He continued: “But where detectives know someone who they suspect of committing the crime they can focus on lines of enquiry arising from them too. They will know some things about the suspect – such as where they live or work, what car they drive and hundreds of other things – which provide a new focus for searches. Officers engaged in the previous, reactive investigation simply did not know of the potential new locations.”
Peter highlighted that this makes the searches “new”, in the sense that the officers conducting the previous, reactive investigation into the disappearance could not have carried them out.
“As they were unaware of Brueckner as a significant suspect they had no reason to search locations connected to him. This means the current searches are not just the police going over old ground again in case they missed something previously. And it means there is more chance of something new being found, if (and it is a very big if) the suspicions about Brueckner are correct and he was involved.”
Who is Christian Bruenecker?
The 48-year-old is the man German investigators believe abducted Madeleine from her family’s rented holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007.
Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for the 2005 rape of an elderly woman at the same resort where Madeleine McCann vanished two years later. He was arrested in Italy in 2018 and is scheduled for release in September.
Although Brueckner has not been formally charged or indicted in connection with the McCann case, he remains under investigation and denies any involvement.
In 2022, Portuguese authorities officially named him an arguido – a formal suspect – in their investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. This designation grants him the legal right to remain silent and to have legal representation.
Brueckner moved to Portugal in 1995 after serving a two-year prison sentence in Germany for the sexual assault of a six-year-old girl in 1994. While living in a cottage in Praia da Luz, he came under scrutiny following Madeleine’s disappearance in 2007. Shortly after the case drew international media attention, he returned to Germany.
Investigators have previously stated that Brueckner made a 30-minute phone call from the Praia da Luz area approximately one hour before Madeleine went missing.
He is also alleged to have confessed to abducting and sexually abusing the toddler on two separate occasions – once in 2017 to a friend at a bar in Germany, and again in 2020 to a fellow inmate. However, neither alleged confession included any claim that he had killed her. Brueckner continues to deny any involvement in her disappearance.
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