Investigators leading the search for Madeleine McCann believe there are two other areas in Portugal they can scour for clues.
Investigators last week searched the remote Barragem do Arade reservoir in the Algarve, which lead suspect Christian Brueckner called a “little piece of paradise” and is located 30 miles from where Madeleine was taken in 2007 .
Police said they found a “relevant clue” during their search for the beauty spot after an informant was able to match photographs showing Brueckner near the reservoir.
And now it is understood there could be other areas around Praia da Luz, where Madeleine had stayed with her family, that police may be looking for after German detectives combed through more than 8,000 photographs belonging to Brueckner .
A source told the Sun“The German officers went through more than 8,000 photos belonging to Christian B. This forensic work led them to Barragem – but there are also other places that appeared in the photos.
Investigators searched the remote Barragem do Arade reservoir in the Algarve last week (pictured)
Authorities gather at a makeshift base camp in the Arade Dam area during the search operation in the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance on May 23
Madeleine (left) was three in May 2007 when she disappeared from her bedroom in the flat where her family were staying in the resort of Praia da Luz on the Algarve coast. German prosecutors believe Christian Brueckner (right) is behind his disappearance
“Detectives are trying to find out where they are and why Christian B was taking pictures of these places.”
Investigators last week cleared a large wooded area at the reservoir and dug eight deep holes to collect soil samples, which were sent for forensic and DNA testing to Germany.
A ‘relevant clue’ was found during the last day of the search, leading police to focus on a specific area of the secluded beauty spot.
Several items have been removed from the site, which may or may not be relevant to the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. They include a bra strap, clothing and plastic items.
The source said German cops believed the initial investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance by Portuguese cops was flawed.
They said: “German detectives remain extremely skeptical of the way the investigation has been carried out in Portugal, which is why they want to continue to search and examine areas – even those that Portuguese cops claim to have examined.
“They think further work could unlock new clues that will move the case forward.”
Last week’s investigation was the first major search for the toddler in nine years and comes after German police discovered photos of Brueckner in his self-proclaimed ‘little paradise’ in the Portuguese region, it is understood.
Brueckner, 45, was camping near the reservoir at the weekend and is said to have set up a grim base there to “clean up”, he revealed last week.
A former friend of Brueckner, who has lived in the Algarve for nearly 30 years and helped police with their investigation, claims the criminal visited the reservoir “often” but was “always secretive about it”.
The German mother-of-three, whose identity has not been made public, recalled how Brueckner drove his campervan to the lakeside because he “liked to be near the water”.
She claimed he always camped in the same spot and “there was usually no one else around”.
‘It was exactly his special place where he said he liked to come and cleanse himself,’ she said of her campsite, telling The Sun: ‘I don’t know what he did there because it was very secret.”
Details of Brueckner’s secret lair have emerged as a British couple told the Mail on Sunday how they spotted a bizarre ‘sanctuary’ for Madeleine in the reservoir just seven months after she disappeared.
The retired couple, who asked to be named only Ralf and Ann, were so disturbed by what they saw they took photos and sent them to Portuguese detectives, thinking they were important but , surprisingly, never heard a response.
Made up of arrow-shaped boulders pointing to a picnic site dug up by police last week, the makeshift memorial was weighed down by a large boulder and carried a bouquet of flowers and a photograph of the abducted Madeleine.
Investigators last week cleared a large wooded area of the Algarve reservoir and dug deep holes to collect samples, which were sent for forensic and DNA testing in Germany.
Christian Brueckner, 45, is believed to be camping at the Barragem do Arade reservoir where cops last week searched for clues in the missing persons case of Madeline McCann. The convicted rapist and pedophile is said to have built a circle with water stones (pictured)
For more than a decade, Madeleine’s anguished parents Gerry and Kate (pictured together in 2017) have waited in vain for any news – any hint – that their baby girl is somehow alive after all this time.
Three years ago – when prime suspect Brueckner, 45, was identified by German police – the couple contacted detectives after seeing a call to anyone who was on holiday in the Algarve when Madeleine disappeared in May 2007 to enter in touch.
This time German BKA (Criminal Investigation Unit) officers responded hours after Ralf and Ann emailed them and interviewed them on the phone for several hours before asking them to make an official statement.
This raises the question of whether it was their information that prompted the German authorities to request a search of the campsite at the secluded picnic area at the edge of the reservoir near Silves, which Brueckner called his “little paradise”.
Last year, German prosecutors named child molester and drug dealer Brueckner as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.
She was three in May 2007 when she disappeared from her bedroom in the flat where her family were staying in the resort town of Praia da Luz on the Algarve coast. The reservoir is about 31 miles inland from the resort.
Bruecker is now behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same area of the Algarve region from which McCann disappeared.
Pictured: Christian Brueckner was filmed driving a battered VW campervan weeks before Madeleine was kidnapped
The German suspect had lived in a warehouse outside Praia da Luz for several years, but had moved into a motorhome just before Madeleine disappeared.
Sources close to Brueckner’s legal team said any further research would be a “waste of time”.
The source told The Sun: “He didn’t kill Madeleine and all of that distracts from the work of finding out who really did.”
Brueckner was known to break into hotel rooms and apartments in the Algarve to supplement his income from drug trafficking, and suddenly left southern Portugal in 2007 – the year of Madeleine’s disappearance – after more a decade of living there.
He allegedly admitted to abducting Madeleine from a friend in a bar – and German investigators strongly believe he killed the three-year-old.
But more than three years after linking Brueckner to Madeleine’s disappearance, he still hasn’t been charged in connection with her abduction because prosecutors don’t have enough evidence.
