Police combing 'vast' area of Portugal's Algarve in Madeleine McCann case

Police officers move a barrier blocking a road as they resume the search for the body of Madeleine McCann, who went missing in the Portuguese Algarve in May 2007, in Atalaia, Portugal, June 3, 2025. REUTERS/Pedro Nunes

LAGOS, Portugal (Reuters) -Portuguese and German police on Tuesday launched joint searches of a "vast" area in Portugal's southern Algarve region for new evidence related to the 2007 disappearance of three-year-old British child Madeleine McCann.

Portugal's investigative Judicial Police (PJ) had said on Monday they would execute search warrants between June 2 and 6 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.