A huge search of a Portuguese reservoir launched 16 years after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has ended without fresh evidence coming to light, according to a report.
Search teams spent three days in late May scouring the Barragem do Arade reservoir in Portugal’s Algarve, about 30 miles from where the three-year-old went missing during a family holiday at the resort of Praia da Luz in 2007.
The operation was carried out at the request of German investigators who believed their prime suspect, Christian Brueckner, referred to the remote Algarve spot as his “little paradise”.
But German police have reportedly now revealed there is “no compelling evidence” Madeleine is at the site, according to a report by The Sun.
German public prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters reportedly told news outlet Bild: “Please don’t expect too much.”
Police flattened a specific area of woodland and dug a number of holes near the remote reservoir as part of the hunt for evidence in May.
Police were given the go-ahead to search the area after German prosecutors received “certain tips” about the case.
The fresh search was allegedly linked to photographs of the beauty spot found at the hideout of Brueckner.
After the operation concluded, Portuguese police said materials collected from the site had been sent to Germany for testing.
Heavy machinery, sniffer dogs and pickaxes were used during the operation.
Detectives are understood to have removed soil samples from the site, which they reportedly planned to cross-examine with samples from a campervan belonging to 46-year-old Brueckner.
Portuguese lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia previously claimed that criminal contacts had told him that Madeleine’s body was in the reservoir, and in 2008 he raised funds for unsuccessful private searches of the water.
The new searches came as the Home Office granted an extra £110,000 in funding this financial year for the Metropolitan Police to assist with finding Madeleine, down from just over £300,000 last year.
The total funding given to Operation Grange has been just under £13.1 million since 2011.
