German authorities have reignited the hunt for Madeleine McCann with a fresh search for the missing child in Portugal.
Police on Tuesday launched a new probe in Praia da Luz, Portugal, where the then-3-year-old disappeared in 2007, marking the first hunt for the missing Brit in three years.
The search, expected to last three days, will see more than 30 German cops comb over 21 private plots of land after Portuguese authorities had granted them permission to fly into the country, BBC News reports.
The particular area of interest in the search lies between Praia da Luz and a house near the vacation resort where main suspect Christian Brueckner previously resided in.
In May 2023, police conducted a week-long search for McCann about 40 minutes away from Praia da Luz. The probe was ultimately unsuccessful.
That search came three years after Portuguese police searched three wells for the child’s body — but failed to find any trace of her in and around the area.
A well-placed source in Portugal confirmed that the operation is officially set to begin tomorrow, though some preliminary work could start earlier.
“They will be land searches only,” the insider said. “The main objective is to look for any signs of Madeleine’s body.”
Following a formal request from German police and prosecutors, Portuguese authorities granted judicial approval, leading local law enforcement to consent to collaborate in the search.
Brueckner, for his part, remains behind bars in Germany as he serves his seven-year prison sentence for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same resort where McCann went missing.
In 2020, German police named Brueckner as a person of interest for the first time in connection with the case.
“The person was made (a suspect) by the German authorities in the execution of a request for international judicial cooperation issued by the Public Ministry of Portugal.”
In April 2022, German officials had formally declared Brueckner as the principle suspect in the McCann case.
The three-year-old vanished during a family vacation in the resort of Praia de Luz in Portugal’s Algarve region in 2007. She went missing from the resort on May 3, a few days before her fourth birthday.
The toddler’s parents had left their three children sleeping in the apartment while they went to a restaurant nearby, returning regularly to check on McCann and her siblings.
But when her mom checked on the kids at 10 p.m., she was horrified to find the door and window to their bedroom wide open and the toddler nowhere to be found.
The official investigation into McCann’s disappearance, called Operation Grange, has been ongoing since 2011.
