Madeleine McCann latest update: The search ends in hours as police descend on Portugal’s reservoir

An investigation has been ongoing since Tuesday this week after German detectives were tipped off by a “highly credible source” about the key suspect Christian Brueckner visited the reservoir “a few days” after Madeleine disappeared.

Though, The mirror reported that a police source said: “The GNR has been instructed to stand down at 4pm local time.”

Barragem do Arade is about 50 km from the hotel Praia da Luz resort where Maddy disappeared. Investigators believe the 45-year-old killed Madeleine, who was three years old at the time, after taking her away from a holiday apartment.

The police are looking Madeleine McCann is to begin a major search of a remote reservoir in the Algarve that was visited by prime suspect Christian Brueckner.

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

An onlooker said: “There are about two dozen Policia Judiciaria officers who appear to be monitoring things at this stage.”

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

Watch the live stream of Portuguese police searching the Algarve reservoir on the third day of the Madeleine McCann search.

Kate and Gerry McCann’s eldest daughter disappeared from the Portuguese resort 16 years ago but the emergence of a new suspect has given new hope for answers and closure:

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

Officers remained focused on a wooded area on a peninsula at the Barragem do Arade on Thursday after a digging operation began on Wednesday afternoon.

Heavy machinery continued to cut through large undergrowth at the site, while a mix of uniformed and plainclothes officers raked the ground.

A large part of the Barragem do Arade has been cordoned off since Tuesday morning, about 30 miles from where Madeleine disappeared in 2007.

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

As some concentrated on the dig site, others used rakes and shovels to clear the surrounding area and slowly work their way through the freshly cut 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 teenager.

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 sexual abuse of children committed in the area between 2000 and 2017.

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

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

After lying dormant for several years since David Cameron launched a largely fruitless Metropolitan Police investigation in 2011, the case of the missing three-year-old was revived again in 2020 when German prosecutors revealed a new suspect.

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

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

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

Her case remains unsolved and remains 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 sorely missed”.

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

Police have crested the banks of a reservoir Portugal using sniffer dogs, rakes and picks as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

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

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

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

In the search area, uniformed and plainclothes officers spent a number of hours clearing the beaches – hammering the ground with pickaxes and combing through small rocks with rakes and shovels.