According to press reports, the searches are being prepared and should begin this Tuesday, 3 June, in an operation that should take place between Praia da Luz, in Lagos, and one of the houses of Christian Bruckner, a German citizen who lived there for a period coinciding with the disappearance of the British child.

Christian Brückner - who denies any involvement in the disappearance of the child and has never been charged by the judicial authorities - is serving a seven-year sentence for another crime committed in Portugal in 2005, when he raped an elderly woman in her holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve, and is due to be released in September.

In 2023, the Judicial Police, in collaboration with the German and English authorities, carried out searches at the Arade dam in Silves, in an area that was frequented by Christian Brückner while he lived in the Algarve.

Madeleine McCann disappeared from the tourist apartment rented by her parents in Luz, in the Algarve, on May 3, 2007.