Major update in Madeleine McCann search as police find ‘number of items’

German agents investigating Madeleine McCann’s disappearance have said a “number of items” possibly linked to the missing girl have been recovered during their search of a reservoir in the Algarve.

Investigators last week searched the remote reservoir of Barragem do Arade, which prime suspect Christian Brueckner called a “little piece of paradise” and is located 30 miles from where Madeleine was taken in 2007.

Detectives cleared a large area of ​​forest near the reservoir and dug eight deep holes to collect soil samples, which were sent to Germany for forensic and DNA testing.

Now German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the case, confirmed today that a “number of items” were seized during the search.

Wolters said: “A number of items were seized as part of the investigation. These will be evaluated in the coming days and weeks.

Whether individual items are actually related to the Madeleine McCann case cannot yet be said. The investigations that are being conducted here in Braunschweig against the 45-year-old suspect are expected to continue for a long time.’

Authorities gather at a makeshift base camp in the Arade dam area during the search operation while investigating Madeleine’s May 23 disappearance

Madeleine (left) was three years old in May 2007 when she disappeared from her bedroom in the apartment where her family was staying in the Praia da Luz resort on the Algarve coast. German prosecutors believe Christian Brueckner (right) is behind her disappearance

Police had said they found a “relevant clue” during their search for the beauty spot after an informant was able to match photos showing Brueckner close to the reservoir.

Several items have been removed from the site, which may or may not be relevant to the investigation of Madeleine’s disappearance. They include a bra strap, clothing items, and plastic items.

An area of ​​about 160 square feet was flattened and cleared of grass and shrubs with several holes dug into the ground to a depth of about two feet to collect soil samples, which were sent to Germany for forensic and DNA testing. It may take months for the results of the full analysis to be finalized.

Last week’s activity was the first major search for the toddler in nine years and comes after German police discovered photos of Brueckner in his self-proclaimed “little paradise” in the Portuguese region, it is understood.

And it was revealed on Tuesday that there may be other areas around Praia da Luz, where Madeleine was staying with her family, that police can search after German detectives searched more than 8,000 photos of Brueckner.

A source told it Sun: ‘German agents have viewed more than 8,000 photos of Christian B. That forensic work led them to Barragem – but there are other places that have come up in the photos as well.

“Detectives are trying to find out where they are and why Christian B took pictures of those places.”

Brueckner camped at the reservoir over the weekend and is said to have set up a base there to “clean himself,” as it turned out last week.

A former friend of Brueckner, who has lived in the Algarve for almost 30 years and has helped police with their investigation, claims the criminal visited the reservoir ‘often’ but was ‘always secretive about it’.

The German mother of three, whose identity has not been released, recalled how Brueckner would drive his motorhome to the edge of the lake because he “liked being near the water.”

She claimed he always camped in the same spot and “there was usually no one else around.”

“This was just his special place that he said he liked to come to cleanse himself,” she said of his campsite, telling The Sun: “I don’t know what he was doing there because he was very secretive.”

Details of Brueckner’s secret lair came to light when a British couple told The Mail on Sunday how they saw a bizarre ‘sanctuary’ for Madeleine in the reservoir just seven months after she disappeared.

Last week, researchers cleared a large area of ​​forest near the Algarve reservoir and dug deep holes to collect samples, which were sent for forensic and DNA testing to Germany

Christian Brueckner, 45, was said to be camping at the Barragem do Arade reservoir, where police searched last week for clues in the case of the missing Madeline McCann. The convicted rapist and pedophile is said to have built a circle of stones from the water (pictured)

For more than a decade, Madeleine’s tormented parents Gerry and Kate (pictured together in 2017) have been waiting in vain for any news – any clue – that their little girl is somehow alive after all this time

The retired couple, who want to be called only Ralf and Ann, were so shocked by what they saw that they took pictures and sent them to Portuguese detectives, thinking they were of significance, but, amazingly, never heard from again.

The makeshift memorial, made up of arrow-shaped boulders pointing to a picnic area excavated by police last week, was weighed down by a large rock and featured a bouquet of flowers and a picture of the kidnapped Madeleine.

Three years ago – when prime suspect Brueckner, 45, was identified by German police – the couple contacted detectives after seeing a call for anyone holidaying in the Algarve when Madeleine went missing in May 2007 to contact them. to take.

This time, the German BKA (criminal investigation unit) officers responded within hours of Ralf and Ann emailing them and questioned them on the phone for several hours before asking them to make a formal statement.

It raises the question of whether it was their information that prompted German authorities to conduct a search of the remote picnic site campsite on the edge of the reservoir near Silves, which Brueckner called his “little paradise.”

Meanwhile, German criminal profiler Axel Petermann said the officer was right to dig in a place Brueckner apparently loved so much.

He told The Mirror: ‘The criminal offenders I’ve come to know over the years tend to hide their victims in places where they feel safe and can assess danger.

“These are remote and secret places where they can stop and assess different risks.

‘They can also be places where they feel good, and where there is a certain private memory of a certain act.

“So I think the search activity went in that direction.”

He added: “My recommendation when dealing with suspects in missing persons cases is always to find the places where these suspects spent time, where they had secrets, where they could assess risk, so from this point of view I think the researchers’ current search was very important.

“You should always delve into the suspect’s life so that you can learn more about their preferences, their tendencies, their favorite places where they liked to spend time.

“And I don’t think you can really find better options than searching secret, confidential locations.”

German prosecutors last year named convicted child molester and drug dealer Brueckner as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.

She was three when she disappeared from her bedroom in May 2007 in the apartment where her family was staying in the Praia da Luz resort on the Algarve coast. The reservoir is about 30 miles inland from the resort.

Brueckner is now behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same area where McCann went missing.

Pictured: Christian Brueckner was filmed behind the wheel of a battered VW camper weeks before Madeleine was kidnapped

The German suspect had been living in a warehouse outside Praia da Luz for several years, but moved into a camper just before Madeleine disappeared

Sources close to Brueckner’s legal team said new searches are “a waste of time.”

The source told the Sun: “He didn’t kill Madeleine, and all of this diverts attention from the task of finding out who really did it.”

Brueckner was known to break into hotel rooms and apartments in the Algarve to supplement his drug-trafficking income, and suddenly left the south of Portugal in 2007 – the year Madeleine disappeared – after living there for more than a decade.

He allegedly admitted kidnapping Madeleine to a friend in a bar – and German detectives would firmly believe he killed the three-year-old.

But more than three years after linking Brueckner to Madeleine’s disappearance, he has still not been charged because prosecutors lack sufficient evidence.