Madeleine McCann latest update: Search to end in hours as police stand down at Portugal reservoir

An investigation has been taking place since Tuesday this week after German detectives were informed by a “very credible source” that key suspect Christian Brueckner visited the reservoir “some days” after Madeleine vanished.

However, The Mirror reported that a police souce said: “The GNR has received instructions to stand down at 4pm local time.”

The Barragem do Arade is around 31 miles from the Praia da Luz resort where Maddy disappeared. Investigators believe the 45-year-old killed Madeleine, then aged three, after abducting her from a holiday apartment.

Police looking for Madeleine McCann are to begin a major search of a remote Algarve reservoir visited by main suspect Christian Brueckner.

Just under a mile away, Portuguese civil protection workers and police were seen setting up large blue tents.

An onlooker said: “There are around two dozen Policia Judiciaria officers who seem to be supervising things at this stage.”

Portugal’s judiciary police confirmed reports of the German-led investigation on Monday evening, with German and British officers expected to reach the area imminently.

Watch the livestream of Portugal’s police searching the Algarve reservoir on the third day of the Madeleine McCann search.

Kate and Gerry McCann’s eldest daughter vanished from Portuguese holiday resort 16 years ago but emergence of new suspect has brought fresh hope of answers and closure:

Police have begun photographing an excavation site near the banks of a remote reservoir in Portugal as the fresh Madeleine McCann searches entered a third day.

Officers maintained their focus on an area of woodland on a peninsula at the Barragem do Arade on Thursday after a digging operation was commenced on Wednesday afternoon.

Heavy machinery continued to cut through vast undergrowth at the site, while a mixture of uniformed and plain-clothed officers raked the ground.

A large section of the Barragem do Arade has been cordoned off since Tuesday morning, around 30 miles from where Madeleine went missing in 2007.

Officers used shovels to excavate their area of focus, and sniffer dogs and pickaxes have also been deployed over the course of the searches.

As some concentrated on the digging site, others used rakes and shovels to scour the surrounding area, slowly making their way through the recently trimmed undergrowth.

The operation is being carried out at the request of German investigators who believe their prime suspect, convicted sex offender Christian Brueckner, 45, kidnapped and murdered the youngster.

He is currently in prison in Germany for the rape of a woman in Praia da Luz in 2005, and is suspected of further rapes and child sexual abuse committed in the area between 2000 and 2017.

German authorities have not revealed what triggered the latest search operation, but prosecutor for the city of Braunschweig Christian Wolters said they were acting on the basis of “certain tips”.

Sixteen years after Madeleine McCann vanished from the Algarve holiday apartment where she was sleeping next to her infant twin siblings, police have launched a major new search for evidence.

After laying dormant for several years since David Cameron kickstarted an ultimately fruitless Metropolitan Police inquiry in 2011, the case of the missing three-year-old was revived once more in 2020 when German prosecutors revealed a new suspect.

But three years on, 43-year-old convicted paedophile Christian Brueckner – who denies any connection to the missing youngster – is yet to be charged, as he languishes in a German prison for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman two years prior to Madeleine’s disappearance at the same resort.

Police in Portugal investigating the disappearance of British citizen Madeleine McCann 16 years ago have begun searching a reservoir in the Algarve known to have been frequented by the latest suspect in the case.

Ms McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, was just three years old when she went missing from an apartment complex at the Ocean Club holiday resort of Praia da Luz in the municipality of Lagos on 3 May 2007.

Her case remains unsolved and is still the subject of intense public and press interest.

Her parents, doctors Gerry and Kate McCann, continue to campaign for her return and recently posted a poem remembering her on their Find Madeleine website, reminding readers that she is “still missing … still very much missed”.

German prisoner Christian Brueckner was first named in connection with the unsolved mystery that summer, and officially named as a suspect last year. His yellow and white VW T3 Westfalia campervan was reportedly identified as having been near to the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal where the young girl went missing on May 3, 2007.

Police have combed the banks of a reservoir in Portugal with the help of sniffer dogs, rakes and pickaxes as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Emergency service divers were seen on a rigid-hull inflatable boat early on Tuesday morning at the Barragem do Arade – around 30 miles from Praia da Luz, where the three-year-old went missing in 2007.

Officers concentrated their search at one area of the reservoir – erecting white tents on a hill on the banks.

Further around the water, emergency services and officials from Portugal, Germany and the UK were seen holding briefings near blue police tents.

In the search area, uniformed and plain-clothed officers spent a number of hours scouring the banks – hammering away at the ground with pickaxes and combing through small rocks with rakes and spades.