Madeleine McCann was just three years old when she went missing from the apartment she had been sleeping in during a family holiday to Portugal.

The little girl’s disappearance sent shock waves around the world and sparked a massive investigation that continues to this day.

Christian Brueckner, a 48-year-old German, is the main suspect in the case, and he is currently behind bars for raping an American woman in the Algarve area where Maddie went missing.

But a fresh search near where the toddler was last seen 18 years ago, covering 20 properties, cisterns, wells and ruins, has begun.

This search will be focused more on groundworks and roadworks, which had been taking place when Madeleine disappeared. Police fear she may have been buried in trenches near Praia da Luz.

Germany’s FBI, known as the BKA, is using ground-penetrating radar to see if it can find any traces of the young British girl.

But just when did Madeleine McCann go missing – and how old would she be today?

How long has Madeleine McCann been missing?

Madeleine McCann was on a spring break from the UK at the child-friendly resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve region of Portugal with her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, and her two-year-old twin siblings.

She and the twins had been left asleep at 8.30 pm in the evening of May 3, 2007, in their ground-floor apartment while her parents and a group of family friends dined in a restaurant 55 metres away.

Mr McCann checked on the children just after 9 pm and found everything to be in order.

Another parent, eating out with the McCanns, Jane Tanner, walked past the flat where the McCanns were staying on her way back to look in on her own children and saw a man carrying a small child.

Another of their friends checked on the McCann children as well as his own at 9:30 pm, and Kate McCann took a turn checking on Madeleine and the twins at roughly 10 pm. This time, Madeleine was nowhere to be found.

The police were called, and even though 60 hotel staff and guests searched the grounds that night, the child wasn’t found.

The man Jane saw became a primary suspect in the investigation into the three-year-old’s disappearance. However, the Metropolitan Police discovered six years later that the man had nothing to do with the case and was just carrying his sleeping daughter home from a creche.

Maddie’s parents, from Rothley, Leicestershire, have vowed never to give up hope of finding their daughter.

How old would she be now?

Madeleine McCann would be 22 today. She was born on May 12, 2003.

She has been missing for over 18 years now.

Last year, parents Kate and Gerry shared a message on Maddie’s 21st birthday saying they are ‘still looking’ and ‘still missing’ their daughter.

The message, accompanied by a picture of the toddler, read: ‘Happy 21st birthday Madeleine. Still missing. Still missed. Still looking.’

What links Christian Brueckner to her disappearance?

Brueckner has denied all the charges against him and any involvement in Maddie’s disappearance.

Brueckner is known to have frequented various areas in the Algarve region surrounding Praia de Luz.

He allegedly exposed himself to a German girl on a beach in Salema in April 2007 and is said to have sold cannabis to teenagers near the holiday apartment where the McCanns stayed, according to MailOnline.

Multiple searches have been carried out in Portugal and Germany over the years, including a remote reservoir in Algarve.

In May 2023, authorities searched the Arade dam reservoir northeast of Praia da Luz, where Brueckner is thought to have stayed often in his Volkswagen T3 camper van, but didn’t find anything of note.

He may have visited the spot around the time of Maddie’s disappearance.

When searching an abandoned factory owned by Brueckner, detectives made disturbing findings they have revealed now, including children’s clothes, toys and a suitcase full of images of young girls.

They also found more than 75 children’s swimming costumes, a handgun and chemicals, which were never tested before police destroyed them. They are thought to have been chloroform or ether.

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Police in Portugal have begun using radar to scan roadwork trenches for any traces of the body of Madeleine McCann.

Madeleine was three when she disappeared on May 3, 2007, during a family trip to the child-friendly resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve region.

Authorities launched a fresh search near where the toddler was last seen 18 years ago, covering 20 properties, cisterns, wells and ruins, according to sources close to the investigation.

This search will be focused more on groundworks and roadworks, which had been taking place when Madeleine disappeared. Police fear she may have been buried in trenches near Praia da Luz.

Police received a tip-off after suspect Christian Brueckner’s trial last year about where someone who took Maddie’s body would dump it, prompting the new search with high-tech ground-penetrating radar.

Germany’s MI5, known as the BKA, is using ground-penetrating radar to see if it can find any traces of the young British girl.

A nearby property, which was used by the suspect Brueckner, 48, will also be a focal point.

The German national used a cottage just half a mile away from where she disappeared as a ‘rat-run’.

Though this is the first major search for Madeleine in nine years, there are worries police may not find anything.

The last major search was in June 2014, and saw British police dig around Praia da Luz with sniffer dogs and use ground-penetrating radar.

Those Scotland Yard digs were linked to the theory that Madeleine died during a break-in and burglars dumped her body nearby.

British officers also failed to produce any evidence pointing to the missing youngster’s whereabouts.

How does the ground-penetrating radar work?

Ground-penetrating radar, which is being used by German authorities in Portugal right now, uses high-frequency radio waves to detect any changes in the soil.

The transmitted waves, when returned back to the receiver at the surface, can help create a sort of topographical map of the soil beneath the operator’s feet.

The technology was used in Canada to identify burial sites on the grounds of former residential schools, where hundreds of indigenous children were found.

Kisha Supernant, who works at the University of Alberta, previously explained how the tech works.

‘When we’re using it to try to locate potential unmarked graves, what we’re really doing is we’re sending that signal through the ground and then trying to create a map of what we think we see below the surface,’ she told the Vancouver Sun.

‘When you dig a grave, you disturb the soil … and ground-penetrating radar can sometimes detect that change in the soil from the digging of the grave itself.’

What links Christian Brueckner to her disappearance?

Brueckner has denied all the charges against him and any involvement in Maddie’s disappearance.

Brueckner is known to have frequented various areas in the Algarve region surrounding Praia de Luz.

He allegedly exposed himself to a German girl on a beach in Salema in April 2007 and is said to have sold cannabis to teenagers near the holiday apartment where the McCanns stayed, according to MailOnline.

Multiple searches have been carried out in Portugal and Germany over the years, including a remote reservoir in the Algarve.

He may have visited the spot around the time of Maddie’s disappearance.

When searching an abandoned factory owned by Brueckner, detectives made disturbing findings they have revealed now, including children’s clothes, toys and a suitcase full of images of young girls.

They also found more than 75 children’s swimming costumes, a handgun and chemicals, which were never tested before police destroyed them. They are thought to have been chloroform or ether.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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Madeleine McCann was just three years old when she went missing from the apartment she had been sleeping in during a family holiday to Portugal.

The little girl’s disappearance sent shock waves around the world and sparked a massive investigation that continues to this day.

Christian Brueckner, a 48-year-old German, is the main suspect in the case, and he is currently behind bars for raping an American woman in the Algarve area where Maddie went missing.

Prosecutors fear time is running out as Brueckner is nearing the end of his seven-year sentence for the 2005 rape.

But just when did Madeleine McCann go missing – and how old would she be today?

How long has Madeleine McCann been missing?

Madeleine McCann was on a spring break from the UK at the child-friendly resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve region of Portugal with her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, and her two-year-old twin siblings.

She and the twins had been left asleep at 8.30pm in the evening of May 3, 2007, in their ground floor apartment while her parents and a group of family friends dined in a restaurant 55 metres away.

Mr McCann checked on the children just after 9pm and found everything to be in order.

Another parent eating out with the McCanns, Jane Tanner, walked past the flat where the McCanns were staying on her way back to look in on her own children and saw a man carrying a small child.

Another of their friends checked on the McCann children as well as his own at 9:30pm, and Kate McCann took a turn checking on Madeleine and the twins at roughly 10pm. This time, Madeleine was nowhere to be found.

The police were called, and even though 60 hotel staff and guests searched the grounds that night, the child wasn’t found.

The man Jane saw became a primary suspect in the investigation into the three-year-old’s disappearance. However, the Metropolitan Police discovered six years later that the man had nothing to do with the case and was just carrying his sleeping daughter home from a creche.

Maddie’s parents, from Rothley, Leicestershire, have vowed never to give up hope of finding their daughter.

How old would she be now?

Madeleine McCann would turn 22 on May 12, 2025.

She has been missing for over 18 years now.

Last year, parents Kate and Gerry shared a message on Maddie’s 21st birthday saying they are ‘still looking’ and ‘still missing’ their daughter.

The message, accompanied by a picture of the toddler, read: ‘Happy 21st birthday Madeleine. Still missing. Still missed. Still looking.’

What links Christian Brueckner to her disappearance?

Brueckner has denied all the charges against him and any involvement in Maddie’s disappearance.

Brueckner is known to have frequented various areas in the Algarve region surrounding Praia de Luz.

He allegedly exposed himself to a German girl on a beach in Salema in April 2007 and is said to have sold cannabis to teenagers near the holiday apartment where the McCanns stayed, according to MailOnline.

Multiple searches have been carried out in Portugal and Germany over the years, including a remote reservoir in Algarve.

In May 2023, authorities searched the Arade dam reservoir northeast of Praia da Luz, where Brueckner is thought to have stayed often in his Volkswagen T3 camper van, but didn’t find anything of note.

He may have visited the spot around the time of Maddie’s disappearance.

When searching an abandoned factory owned by Brueckner, detectives made disturbing findings they have revealed now, including children’s clothes, toys and a suitcase full of images of young girls.

They also found more than 75 children’s swimming costumes, a handgun and chemicals, which were never tested before police destroyed them. They are thought to have been chloroform or ether.

This article was first published on July 11, 2023.

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The prime suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance worked in the tapas bar her parents were at the night she disappeared, according to a man who knew him.

German criminal Christian Brueckner, 47, lived just a 12-minute drive from the Ocean Club tapas bar frequented by Kate and Gerry McCann.

The McCann family were staying at the resort in Praia da Luz, in Portugal’s Algarve region, when Madeleine went missing from their holiday apartment in 2007 when she was just three years old.

Now it’s emerged Brueckner worked cash-in-hand at the restaurant, according to claims from a British acquaintance, Ken Ralphs, MailOnline reported.

This may have given him access to a booking ledger showing staff that McCann’s children would be alone that night.

Ralphs, who knew Brueckner at the time, claims the German man recruited a mutual friend as part of a plot to kidnap a child just a week before Madeleine disappeared.

They intended to sell the youngster to a childless couple, the 59-year-old claimed.

But he believes the extensive media coverage highlighting a distinctive mark in Madeleine’s eye made it impossible to sell her.

Ralphs fears they felt they had no choice but to ‘dispose’ of Madeleine after they kidnapped her while her parents were out with friends dubbed ‘The Tapas Seven’.

He took his suspicions to police in both Portugal and the UK immediately after Madeleine’s disappearance.

But he still doesn’t know if they ever used the information in their investigations – and he’s not alone.

Brueckner was named as the chief suspect in the case by German prosecutors in 2020, more than 13 years after Madeleine vanished.

He’s never been charged in connection with the case and he denies having any involvement in her disappearance.

Brueckner is currently in a German prison for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in her Praia da Luz home in 2005.

He is on trial for five unrelated charges, including three of rape, alleged to have been committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

All the attacks took place close to where Madeleine vanished in Praia da Luz in May 2007, it is claimed.

Brueckner spent 12 years living in and around the small resort town as part of the region’s drifter community.

Ralphs, a former community champion in Greater Manchester, ended up there after fleeing the UK in 2004 because a police blunder put his name in the hands of suspected criminals.

He started receiving death threats after giving police information on a gangland murder for which the suspects were cleared.

Once in Praia da Luz, he and his wife joined the drifter community, moving from place to place in a campervan.

Ralphs had seen Brueckner at car boot sales, town centres and camping spots on the region’s beaches.

They met through a mutual friend, a penniless man who lived in a hidden encampment with his wife, children and Brueckner in Carrapateira – 10 miles from Praia da Luz.

After spending a night sitting around a campfire drinking beers alongside their families, the mutual friend told Ralphs about Brueckner’s plan.

‘We sat by the fire until the early hours of the morning, and that’s when [John] started to cry and confess’, Ralphs told MailOnline.

‘[He] told me Christian was planning to take a child from Praia da Luz. He then clarified it was not ransom, but that it was to take a child to sell to a German couple who could not have children of their own.

‘He assured me the child would not be harmed.’

The friend asked Ralphs to keep it a secret, telling him: ‘Christian knew many people who will pay good money for a child who cannot give birth, and that the child would be taken from a rich family with more than one child [of their own] so the parents would not grieve as badly.’

He tried to convince his friend to stay away from the criminal world, even offering to train him in his work fixing caravan satellites so he wouldn’t be part of Brueckner’s plot.

But they never spoke of it again. A week later, Madeleine was gone.

Ralphs was visiting his dad in Stockport when the news broke.

‘First thing I said was “Oh for f*** sake”. My dad asked what’s the matter, and I told my dad,’ he said.

Keen to avoid dealing with police in Manchester again, he travelled to Workington in Cumbria and delivered a statement informing them of the plans and that Brueckner worked at Ocean Club, Ralphs said.

He also gave Cumbria Police a hand-drawn map of the teepee camp in Portugal, urging them to pass it to Portuguese officials searching for Madeleine.

Cumbria Police said it had no record of Ralphs’ statement from 2007.

Ralphs returned to Portugal days later to look for his friend at the encampment only to find all but a bamboo cage destroyed by fire.

He found the surviving item ‘unusual because the cage wasn’t there before’.

After searching other beaches, he found another mutual acquaintance, a French man who informed him their friend had left him his dog as he was going to Africa.

He gave his information directly to the Portuguese police but was told his friend claimed not to know him and that he’d unlikely been involved because he had a family of his own.

Ralphs was ‘gobsmacked’ to then run into an apron-clad Brueckner near Ocean Club, where police were interviewing all staff members.

Brueckner, however, may have slipped under their radar because he worked there off the books.

When Brueckner was named a suspect in 2020, Ralphs went back to British and Portuguese police but both told him they didn’t have his original statements from 2007.

Ocean Club did not respond to MailOnline’s requests for comment.

A fresh flurry of calls and tips has flowed towards investigators since Brueckner appeared in a German court last week.

One of the rapes he is on trial for was so brutal his victim feared the knife-armed Brueckner would behead her, the court in Braunschweig heard.

The other two rape attacks were allegedly committed against an elderly woman in her 70s and a girl aged 14.

Brueckner will not respond to any of the charges he faces.

His lawyer Friedrich Fülscher dismissed the evidence as ‘abysmal’ and said: ‘The defendant is using his right to remain silent.’

‘Our client has been subject to media attention, he has been accused of kidnapping and killing Madeleine McCann by members of the media and prosecutors, without evidence,’ he added.

‘We are not dealing with the worst criminal story of the post-war period but it will be hard for the court to put it out of their minds.’

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A sickening online chat between the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case and another paedophile ‘could be a hint’ as to who is responsible for her disappearance.

The three-year-old vanished from an apartment in the Algarve in May 2007 and convicted sexual predator Christian Brueckner has been identified as the key suspect because of his movements in Portugal at the time. 

German police have uncovered a vile exchange between Brueckner and another paedophile on his computer in which he writes explicitly about wanting to abduct and kill a little girl.

A public prosecutor leading the investigation, which has now dragged on for 16 years, says the conversation may provide a crucial clue because of the use of the letters ‘mm’.

In the chat, which was too sickening to be made public in full, Breuckner describes how he wants to ‘document’ his kidnap and murder of a child.

One message from Breuckner reads, ‘oh, if the evidence is destroyed,’ to which the other paedophile replies: ‘Mm.’

Hans Christian Wolters, a prosecutor in Braunschweig, told BBC’s Panorama: ‘Yeah, maybe it could be a hint. It could be. Of course, it’s important for us.’

When asked if it could be part of a ‘bundle of evidence that could convict Brueckner’, Mr Wolters said: ‘Yes, this could be something like that. That could be a piece for the big puzzle.’ 

Mr Wolters said he is ‘sure’ that the toddler is dead, that she was killed in Portugal and that they only have ‘one suspect’ – Brueckner. 

‘We think that he was involved in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann,’ he said.

‘And we think that he murdered Madeleine McCann. That’s our stand.’

The 46-year-old is currently behind bars in northern Germany serving a seven-year sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz in 2005 – the same village where Madeleine went missing.

He is being held at a high-security prison locally named as the ‘Alcatraz of the North’ in Oldenburg, near Bremen, and is accused of a string of further crimes in the area between 2000 and 2017.

It’s alleged that he carried out two sex attacks on children and three rapes, two of which he reportedly filmed at his former residence in Praia da Luz.

The trial, which is expected to last at least one month, could begin as soon as February next year and is likely to be held at Braunschweig High Court after it was ruled that Brueckner can be tried in Germany for the alleged crimes.

German prosecutors have not yet charged Brueckner in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine and the case against him is not yet fully known. 

But his history as a convicted thief, child abuser and rapist is well documented and the recently discovered online chat evidence suggests that he appears to have fantasized about abducting and killing a young girl. 

Investigators also say his phone puts him near the ground floor apartment 5A on Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva where Madeleine was staying when she disappeared while on holiday with her parents Kate and Gerry McCann. 

After getting hold of his phone number from May 2007, transmitter data showed he received a call near apartment 5A between 7.32pm and 8.02pm on the night Madeleine vanished – she was reported missing at 10pm.

Mr Wolters says he is ‘sure’ that Brueckner was near the apartment that night but when questioned as to who was on the other end of the line, he admitted: ‘We don’t know. We know only the number.’

He said that the call is ‘very important’ to the investigation.

‘We have some kind of evidence,’ Mr Wolters said. ‘So maybe these are pictures, videos, chats, documents, something like that.’

In May this year, an extensive three-day search operation was carried out by police at a reservoir near Praia da Luz that Brueckner once called his ‘little piece of paradise’ and would stay at in his campervan.

Mr Wolters said: ‘At the reservoir, we are searching for evidence, not for the body of Madeleine.

‘I can’t speak about the results because the investigation of the things we found there is still ongoing.’

Officers had previously found child pornography on USB sticks buried under Brueckner’s dead dog at an abandoned factory in eastern Germany he owned and used to live at.

It’s thought that USB sticks may be among the items investigators were searching for at the reservoir in Portugal, the BBC reported.

When asked about when the case could be solved, Mr Wolters added: ‘I hope that we will come to an end in the next year. 

‘Maybe we need some more time but I hope that we will finish the investigation in the next year.’

It also emerged that Portuguese police travelled to London earlier this year to apologise to Madeleine’s father Gerry in person for the way he and his family were treated.

Brueckner has denied killing Madeleine and wrote a string of dark letters from his prison cell to protest his innocence.

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Items found by police in the search for new evidence in the Madeleine McCann case are said to have not thrown up any new clues, sources have said.

German prosecutors are said to have hit a ‘roadblock’ it has been reported.

Police have spent the last two weeks analysing items discovered during the search in the Barragem do Arade reservoir in Portugal, 30 miles from where Madeleine went missing.

Prosecutor Christian Wolters said the individual items seized as part of searches would be evaluated over the coming days and weeks.

None of the item can yet be linked with the investigation into the missing girl’s disappearance.

The materials were later sent to Germany for testing.

Police were given the go-ahead to search the area after German prosecutors received ‘certain tips’ about the case.

It was carried out at the request of German investigators who believe the suspect, convicted sex offender Christian Brueckner, kidnapped and murdered the youngster.

A source told The Sun Online: ‘Sadly, it’s looking increasingly like the search of the reservoir will not provide any answers or fresh leads.

‘It’s too strong to say it was a waste of time, but officers are naturally really disappointed.

They added: ‘It feels like a bit of a roadblock has been hit. However, there are still some items to carry out checks on and the police team will continue to work hard.’

Detectives spent three days scouring the reservoir near Praia da Luz that Christian B, 46, once called his ‘little paradise’.

Maddie was just three-years-old when she vanished from her holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in 2007.

German police are confident that Christian B, who was named as the prime suspect in Maddie’s disappearance in 2020 is their man.

Christian B is currently serving a seven-year sentence for the 2005 rape of a pensioner in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz.

He was charged with three offences of aggravated rape and two offences of the sexual abuse of children, in alleged crimes spanning 17 years between 2000 and 2017.

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