Madeleine McCann live updates: Police to search land near suspect’s former home with new ‘weapon’ following tip-off

This week’s major search, the first for more than two years in Portugal, will focus on wells, ruins, and water storage tanks on 21 plots of privately-owned land thought to cover around 120 acres.

German authorities have requested the four-day searches close to the ramshackle cottage their convicted paedophile sole suspect Christian Brueckner used to live at near to the holiday resort of Praia da Luz where Maddie vanished 18 years ago.

It emerged yesterday fresh police searches would start this morning a few miles from the Ocean Club resort where Madeleine McCann vanished on May 3, 2007 as her parents Kate and Gerry ate tapas nearby with their holiday friends.

Portuguese sources said the searches would take place between Brueckner’s old rented cottage and a rural area east heading towards Lagos known as Atalaia.

by Natalia Penza in Praia da Luz

Police will begin hunting for Madeleine McCann’s body at 9am local time today on the Algarve in a ‘last-throw-of-the-dice’ search which Portuguese cops are already predicting privately will come to nothing.

Cracks are already appearing this morning between the Portuguese police who have made it clear they are simply “complying” with decisions they haven’t taken and their German counterparts.

Officials say the areas that will be ‘turned upside down’ this week have already been checked by local police officers

A Portuguese police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said overnight:

We have low expectations about these searches but we’ve got our orders and we’re not going to stand in the way.

The information that’s being put out in the public arena is that they’ll last five days with the preparation work and clean-up afterwards and we’ve been told to expect three days of full work on the ground. But on the Portuguese side at least there’s wishful thinking this could all be done in one day.

We would love to be proved wrong and see a significant discovery because it’s what we’ve all been working towards for so many years. But the area that’s going to be turned upside down this week has already been searched by Portuguese officers.

The start point for today’s searches is expected to be the one-bed cottage Brueckner lived in for several years a 10-minute drive from Praia da Luz.

Portuguese police will carry out the new searches this week at the request of German authorities.

It comes more than two years after the previous one in May 2023.

The move is part of a warrant issued by the Braunschweig public prosecutor’s office, in northern Germany, which is conducting a preliminary investigation into Christian Brueckner, suspected by German authorities of killing McCann, the Portuguese police spokesperson said, confirming information from British and Portuguese media.

‘All the evidence seized by police will, with prior authorisation from the national public prosecutor’s office, be handed over to agents of the German federal criminal police,’ the spokesperson added.

The Metropolitan Police said it was aware of the searches and will be on hand to offer assistance.

The McCanns present a picture of Madeleine during a press conference

Madeleine McCann was never found after going missing in 2007 from the resort in Praia da Luz where she was with her family in what has become one of the most high-profile missing person cases in history.

For more than a decade, her anguished parents Gerry and Kate have waited in vain for any news – any clue – that their child is somehow alive after all this time.

But none of the tip-offs have turned out to be correct and the main suspect in the case, convicted rapist Christian Brueckner, has still not been charged in connection with Madeleine’s disappearance.

It has been a case filled with false starts and false hopes, with thousands of bogus sightings of Madeleine from Dorset to as far away as New Zealand.

Police officers participating in today’s searches for Madeleine McCann are equipped with ground-penetrating radar technology that can scan up to 15ft below the surface of the ground.

Described as a ‘new weapon’ in their ground-scanning radar, it means officers will only dig if they detect anything of interest instead of for the sake of it.

More than 20 privately owned pieces of land will be searched including wells, ruins and water storage tanks.

One investigating source told the Sun:

Following Brueckner’s trial last year someone contacted them with theories on where anyone who took Madeleine might’ve dumped her. They told cops about trenches that were dug in Praia at the time Madeleine disappeared, and the house where Brueckner had lived on the edge of the village.

Of course, all of these places have been searched over and over again, but now they have a new weapon in their ground-scanning radar. It means they don’t need to dig for the sake of it. But as soon as they spot anything of interest they are ready to excavate and check it.

Last night roads were closed and tents set up between the resort in Portugal where the three-year-old vanished 18 years ago, and a house nearby where Christian Brueckner once lived.

Prime suspect Brueckner, 48, is in prison in Germany serving seven years for rape and the request for yet another search was made by German police.

At least 30 agents from Germany’s FBI, the BKA, acted on a tip-off and arrived at the idyllic Portuguese resort.

Hello and welcome to MailOnline’s live coverage as police carry out fresh searches for Madeleine McCann in the Portguese resort she vanished from 18 years ago.

German investigators will today lead new attempts to find Madeleine who was three years old when she disappeared from an apartment complex in Praia da Luz while on holiday with her family.

Her disappearance sparked a major police investigation across Europe and has become one of the highest-profile unsolved missing person cases in the world.

Stick with us throughout the day as we bring you live updates from Praia da Luz with our reporter Nick Pisa plus Jamie Bullen reporting in London.