STORY: Police vehicles left an area in Portugal's southern Algarve region on Tuesday evening (June 3) that was being searched by a joint Portuguese and German police operation looking for new evidence related to the case of Madeleine McCann.

The scale of the searches could be the most extensive since the initial investigation was closed in 2008, a year after 3-year-old Madeleine went missing while on holiday with her family in the Algarve town of Praia da Luz.

The British child's disappearance sparked a frenzied search and gained the attention of the world's media. She has never been found.

Fresh though relatively focused searches were ordered by Portuguese, British and German police of scrubland, wells and reservoirs in 2014, 2020 and 2023. None of these searches were confirmed to have yielded significant evidence.

Portugal's investigative Judicial Police (PJ) had said on Monday they would execute search warrants at the behest of the public prosecutor's office in Germany's Braunschweig, which in 2022 formally identified German national Christian Brueckner as an official suspect in the case.

The search operation is expected to end on Thursday (June 5), a spokesperson for the public prosecutor's office in the northern German city of Braunschweig said.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

VIDEO SHOWS: POLICE LEAVING MADELEINE MCCANN SEARCH AREA IN THE ALGARVE

RESENDING WITH COMPLETE SCRIPT

SHOWS: ATALAIA, PORTUGAL (JUNE 3, 2025) (REUTERS - Access all)

1. VARIOUS OF POLICE VEHICLES LEAVING AREA BEING SEARCHED FOR EVIDENCE IN MADELEINE MCCANN CASE IN JOINT GERMAN-PORTUGUESE POLICE OPERATION

2. VARIOUS OF BEACH IN ATALAIA