Portuguese and German police are carrying out fresh searches for British toddler Madeleine McCann in Portugal's Algarve region, where she went missing 18 years ago.
The three-year-old disappeared from her bed while on holiday with her family in the Praia da Luz resort, in southern Portugal, on 3 May, 2007. She has not been seen since.
Detectives acting on a request from a German public prosecutor will carry out "a broad range" of searches this week in the Lagos area, a Portuguese police statement said.
German investigators have taken the lead in the case since identifying 48-year-old Christian Brückner as their prime suspect in 2020. Brückner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005.
He is under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case but has not been charged. He spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz, around the time of the child's disappearance. Brückner has denied any involvement in her disappearance.
Prosecutors in Braunschweig, Germany, who are responsible for the investigation, didn’t give details of the "judicial measures" taking place in Portugal. They said the measures are being carried out by Portuguese authorities with support from officers from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office.
London's Metropolitan Police said it was "aware of the searches being carried by the BKA (German federal police) in Portugal as part of their investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann".
"The Metropolitan Police Service is not present at the search, we will support our international colleagues where necessary," the force added, without giving more details.
According to a report by CNN Portugal, searches could begin on Tuesday and will focus on an area between Praia da Luz and one of the houses where Brückner lived at the time of McCann's disappearance.
The McCann case received worldwide interest for several years, with reports of sightings of her stretching as far away as Australia as well as books and television documentaries about her disappearance.
Nearly two decades later, investigators in the UK, Portugal and Germany are still piecing together what happened on the night she disappeared. She was in the same room as her brother and sister — 2-year-old twins — while their parents, Kate and Gerry, had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.
The last time police resumed searches in the case was in 2023, when detectives from the three countries took part in an operation searching near a dam and a reservoir about 50 kilometres from the Praia da Luz resort.
