Portuguese and German police launched joint searches on Tuesday across a “vast” area in Portugal’s southern Algarve region, seeking new evidence related to the 2007 disappearance of British child Madeleine McCann.
Portugal’s investigative Judicial Police (PJ) stated on Monday that they would execute search warrants between June 2 and 6 at the request of the public prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig, Germany, which in 2022 formally identified German national Christian Brueckner as an official suspect in the case.
A source involved in the search operation described the targeted area as “vast,” with police using ground-penetrating radar across several hectares. Portuguese officers are following instructions from German police under a European Investigation Order.
The scale of the searches could be the most extensive since the initial investigation was closed in 2008.
Previous, more focused searches were conducted by Portuguese, British, and German police in scrubland, wells, and reservoirs in 2014, 2020, and 2023. However, none of these searches were confirmed to have yielded significant evidence.
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Reuters footage showed uniformed PJ officers on a cordon on a dirt road in Atalaia, a neighborhood of Lagos municipality, waving through unmarked vans and cars with German license plates from Wiesbaden, where the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is headquartered.
The BKA is assisting Portuguese law enforcement with “criminal procedural measures,” Braunschweig prosecutors told Reuters, declining to provide further details.
The occupants of one of the German vehicles wore bucket hats, clothing with camouflage patterns, and covered their faces with bandanas.
A van belonging to Portugal’s Maritime Police also arrived. That force has jurisdiction over coastal areas and participated in previous searches of beaches, wells, and reservoirs using specialist divers.
The road the police cordoned off is located close to a golf course and less than 1 km (0.6 miles) from the beach. The search area was near a property that Brueckner lived in, a neighbor told Reuters in 2020, though the timeframe was unclear.
Madeleine McCann went missing on May 3, 2007, while on holiday with her family in the Algarve town of Praia da Luz, sparking a widespread search and gaining international media attention. She has never been found.
German police stated in June 2020 that Madeleine was assumed dead and that Brueckner, in his 40s, was likely responsible. He has denied responsibility.
Brueckner, a convicted child abuser and drug dealer, is currently imprisoned in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same area of the Algarve. His sentence runs until September, meaning he is scheduled for release unless prosecutors find sufficient evidence to charge him over Madeleine’s disappearance.
On Jan. 17, Sky News quoted the German prosecutor investigating Madeleine’s disappearance as saying that there was currently no prospect of charges being brought against Brueckner.
