Updated 5/25/23 at 8:36 p.m
The investigation into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance in 2007 appears to have progressed. Portuguese police announced that, at the request of German authorities, they had halted excavations near a lake in southern Portugal that had been ongoing since Tuesday. Criminal Police said in a press release that “the material collected will be handed over to the German authorities,” who since 2020 have claimed they are convinced of the British girl’s death and suspect a German multiple-recidivist sex offender already jailed in the country for a rape in Portugal. .
Police gave no details on the items collected or the purpose of the operation, which was carried out on the banks of a water reservoir in Silves, a municipality in the Algarve’s tourist region, with the involvement of German and British investigators.
soil and tissue samples
Between Tuesday and Thursday, investigators surveyed the excavation area using dogs, a drone and a caterpillar brush cutter. Some parts of the country have been combed with probes, shovels and rakes. According to local media, investigators have been collecting soil samples and collecting several scraps of cloth found at the site since the excavations began.
According to local press, police were also looking for a pink blanket or the pajamas Maddie was wearing the night of her disappearance. According to the Portuguese weekly Expresso, it was the testimony of an informant whom the German investigators considered “very credible” that prompted them to take an interest in the place again.