MADDIE McCANN CASE: Tip sparked new hunt for missing toddler

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The 18-year law enforcement odyssey into the shocking disappearance of toddler Maddie McCann has taken another twist.

On Tuesday, German investigators began scouring the area around Praia da Luz, Portugal, on the Algarve coast, where the three-year-old vanished in 2007.

The multinational probe had stalled and started multiple times since the little girl went missing. She is now believed to have been murdered.

Thirty German cops have started combing more than 20 private plots of land, and the search area includes an abandoned farmhouse.

The prime suspect in Maddie’s kidnapping and suspected murder is a convicted German pedophile named Christian Brueckner. He previously lived in the area of the search.

Two years ago, law enforcement conducted a similar search in an area about 40 minutes away from where they are currently looking. In the end, detectives found nothing of substance.

In 2020, Portuguese investigators searched three wells for Maddie’s body. Their efforts were also unsuccessful.

“They will be land searches only,” a police source told the U.K. Sun. “The main objective is to look for any signs of Madeleine’s body.”

Suspected pedophile Brueckner remains in a German prison where he is serving a seven-year sentence for raping an elderly American woman at the same resort where Maddie vanished from.

The investigation went cold until 2020, when German homicide detectives revealed that Brueckner was a person of interest in the probe. In 2022, officials stated that the pedophile was the primary suspect.

Maddie vanished during a family holiday on May 3, 2007, several days before her fourth birthday. Her parents had been having dinner with friends, leaving Maddie and her two siblings sleeping. The McCanns frequently checked on their children to make sure all was well.

At 10 p.m., Maddie’s mom, Kate, went to check on the children and was horrified to find the door and the window to their bedroom were both wide open. Maddie was nowhere to be found.

On Tuesday, investigators were searching the area of the rundown farmhouse. A police source told the Daily Mail that the search area is “vast” and that cops are using ground-penetrating radar.

Investigators are now racing against the clock. They have yet to press formal charges against Brueckner, whose jail sentence is nearly at an end.

One detective called the search a “last-throw-of-the-dice.” Officials in Portugal remain skeptical whether anything will be found.

“We have low expectations about these searches but we’ve got our orders and we’re not going to stand in the way,” one official told the Mail.

“The information that’s being put out in the public arena is that they’ll last five days with the preparation work and clean-up afterwards, and we’ve been told to expect three days of full work on the ground.

“But on the Portuguese side, at least there’s wishful thinking that this could all be done in one day. We would love to be proved wrong and see a significant discovery because it’s what we’ve all been working towards for so many years.

“But the area that’s going to be turned upside down this week has already been searched by Portuguese officers.”

Maddie’s family recently marked the 18th anniversary of her disappearance, saying she was a “very beautiful and unique person.” She would now be 22 years old.

Brueckner told a German TV network that if he is sprung in September on schedule, he would move somewhere that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Germany. And he would go into hiding.

bhunter@postmedia.com