Portuguese police announced Thursday that they had ended searches conducted since Tuesday near a lake in southern Portugal, at the request of German authorities, as part of the investigation into the disappearance of little Madeleine McCann in 2007.
The judicial police said in a statement that "the material collected will be handed over to the German authorities", who have claimed since 2020 to be convinced that the British girl is dead and suspect a German multi-recidivist sex offender already incarcerated in his country for rape in Portugal.
Exceptional research campaign
The police did not give details of the elements collected or the purpose of the operation carried out with the participation of German and British investigators, near the banks of a reservoir located in Silves, a municipality in the tourist region of the Algarve.
Shortly before celebrating her fourth birthday, Madeleine McCann disappeared on 3 May 2007 from the room of a resort in Praia da Luz, a small resort in the Algarve where she spent holidays with her family, while her parents dined with friends at a nearby restaurant. The disappearance of the British girl gave rise to an exceptional international campaign led by Kate and Gerry McCann to try to find her, and remains one of the great criminal enigmas of recent years.
The area of the Arade dam, located about fifty kilometers from the site of the disappearance of "Maddie", had already been raked in 2008, including by divers who had found only animal remains. According to local media, the German suspect went there regularly and described the place as his "little paradise".
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This man, who is serving a prison sentence in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in 2005 in Portugal, was identified in 2020 by German investigators as Christian Brueckner, a multi-recidivist pedophile now aged 46 and having lived for several years in the Algarve.
Between Tuesday and Thursday, investigators surveyed the search area using dogs, a drone and a tracked brushcutter. Portions of the land were combed with probes, shovels and rakes. According to local media, investigators have collected soil samples since the beginning of the excavation and gathered several shreds of tissue found at the site.
According to local press reports, police were looking for a pink blanket or pajamas Maddie was wearing on the night of her disappearance. According to the Portuguese weekly Expresso, it was the testimony of an informant "considered very credible" by German investigators that led them to take an interest in this place again.