Madeleine McCann detectives will search in Algarve reservoir suspect Brueckner used to visit

German police searching for the body of Madeleine McCann are about to launch a major search of a remote reservoir in the Algarve that suspect Cristian Brueckner used to frequent.

Police in Portugal are expected to begin closing roads leading to the artificial dam near the town of Silves in southern Portugal shortly ahead of the official start of the search tomorrow.

Scotland Yard detectives are said to have traveled to the area, but only with a ‘watching briefing’.

The search will last a minimum of two days and beyond if anything relevant is found.

It will be the first major operation of its kind since June 2014, when British police were allowed to dig in Praia da Luz – where Madeleine disappeared – using sniffer dogs trained to find bodies and ground-penetrating radar.

Expert divers are now ready to explore the murky depths of the dam around the Barragem do Arade reservoir, but excavations will also take place in waterside forests.

A truck driver says he saw a woman hand over a child like Madeleine McCann to a man two days after she went missing from her holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007.

It was searched twice in February and March 2008 by divers hired by a Portuguese lawyer.

Marcos Aragao Correia organized the privately funded operation after claiming he was tipped off by underworld contacts that Madeleine had been murdered and that her body had been thrown into the reservoir within 48 hours of her disappearance.

The second search found two bags of small bones after divers previously found several lengths of cord, some plastic tape and a single white cotton sock.

Portuguese police were alerted after the discovery, but then ruled out the possibility that the bones were human due to their size.

Last year, suspect Christian Brueckner first spoke out about the case, denying allegations that he was involved in her disappearance in a letter seen by MailOnline.

Officially made a suspect in the case in April 2022, he stressed that he was ‘not present at the time and did not live near the place’ [of her disappearance].’

Brueckner, who has been linked to four child murders across Europe since 1996, said: ‘I am the most famous bad person in the world and I have done nothing – well, almost nothing.’

He added, “I wasn’t kidnapping anyone and of course I wasn’t killing anyone.

“I’ll go on, I’ll tell you I didn’t attack anyone after I turned 18.

“I made some stupid mistakes when I was younger, but who hasn’t?”

On May 12, the family posted a video in honor of their daughter’s 20th birthday.

The slideshow included images of Madeleine and missing persons posters that had been put up since her disappearance.

“We love you and we are waiting for you. We never give up,” it read.

Madeleine Beth McCann went missing from her bed on the evening of May 3, 2007 at the age of three while on vacation with her family.

Madeleine’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann had previously dismissed Mr Correia as a self-publicist and said there was no evidence of a link between their daughter and the reservoir.

It is not thought to have been searched since March 2008 as part of the ongoing investigation into her disappearance.