Investigators are continuing to scour scrubland and abandoned buildings in the second day of the latest search for Madeleine McCann, with detectives bringing in an excavator as they dig for evidence.
Teams of German and Portuguese cops, as well as firefighters, face the daunting task of hunting for clues 18 years on from the disappearance of the British three-year-old in 2007.
This week’s operation is focusing on a sparsely developed area of land around 3.5 miles from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine was last seen while on holiday with her parents and siblings.
Madeleine vanished after she was left sleeping in a room with her toddler twin brother and sister while her parents went for dinner with friends in a nearby restaurant.
Parents Kate and Gerry McCann are not commenting during the ‘active police investigation’, staff at the Find Madeleine Campaign said.
The area where they are working is an area of fields and scrubland between a main road and the sea, with a few derelict buildings including a vineyard.
On Wednesday, officers were seen clearing vegetation around abandoned buildings, wearing protective gear such as hard hats and face masks, and a digger was used to move rubble.
It has been reported that teams will look where trenches were dug near the resort at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance, at wells, ruins and water tanks, and that there are plans to examine 21 pieces of land.
Search teams use a backhoe close to Praia De Luz, Portugal, where searches are being carried out by officers investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCan
Investigators are continuing to scour scrubland and abandoned buildings in the second day of the latest search for Madeleine McCann
Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday flat in Portugal aged three in 2007
Ground penetrating radar equipment arrived in vans from Germany on Wednesday and it is expected to be deployed this afternoon as the search around the area continues.
Sources said the equipment would not be used to ‘find a body’ but instead to see if the ground has been disturbed and any evidence buried.
Beforehand, police were seen using pickaxes, shovels and spades to sift soil into plastic boxes and bins and taking it to a blue tent for further examination.
The search is being carried out at the request of the German federal police, as they look for evidence that could implicate prime suspect Christian Brueckner, who is in prison for raping a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz in 2005.
He is due to be released from jail in September if no further charges are brought.
In October last year, Brueckner was cleared by a German court of unrelated sexual offences, alleged to have taken place in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
About 30 German police, including forensic experts, are said to be taking part in the search alongside Portuguese officers.
The operation is expected to last until Friday unless anything relevant emerges.
The Metropolitan Police said they were aware of the operation but that British officers will not be present.
It is the first search in Portugal for more than two years.
It is not clear if detectives are now acting on a new tip-off about where Madeleine’s body could be.
The search is being carried out at the request of the German federal police, as they look for evidence that could implicate prime suspect Christian Brueckner
The operation is expected to last until Friday unless anything relevant emerges
The Metropolitan Police said they were aware of the operation but that British officers will not be present
It is not clear if detectives are now acting on a new tip-off about where Madeleine’s body could be
German investigators and Portuguese officers last carried out searches in 2023, near the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 30 miles from Praia da Luz.
They were the first major searches in Portugal for Madeleine McCann in nine years following an earlier June 2014 operation when British police were given permission to carry out digs in Praia da Luz that involved sniffer dogs trained in detecting bodies and ground-penetrating radar.
Those digs were linked to the leading UK police theory at the time Madeleine died during a break-in and burglars hid her body nearby.
They also failed to produce any evidence pointing to the missing youngster’s whereabouts.
It was previously searched in 2008, when Portuguese lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia paid for specialist divers to search it, after he claimed to have been tipped off by criminal contacts that Madeleine’s body was there.
Brueckner, who spent time in the area between 2000 and 2017, had photographs and videos of himself near the reservoir.
The 48-year-old convicted paedophile faces having his hopes of being released from jail in September scuppered after reportedly being accused of new offences against prison guards behind bars.
He is under investigation on suspicion of abduction and murder in the McCann case but has denied any involvement in the girl’s 2007 disappearance.
Gerry, left, and Kate McCann, parents of four-year old Madeleine McCann, present a picture of their daughter during a press conference in Berlin, Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Pictured: Prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine, Christian Brueckner, who was in Praia da Luz when she went missing
Parents Kate and Gerry McCann are not commenting during the ‘active police investigation’
While German investigators made the unusual move of naming the convicted paedophile as a suspect in the case, he has not been charged.
Brueckner’s prison term is set to end with his release this September – much earlier than prosecutors had hoped for after he was acquitted of unrelated sexual offences in court last October following a trial.
The convicted rapist is no longer being held in solitary confinement as he nears the end of his sentence.
