Madeleine McCann police to begin major search of remote reservoir

German police searching for Madeleine McCann’s body are about to start a major search of a remote Algarve reservoir suspect Christian Brueckner used to visit. Portuguese police are soon expected to start closing off roads soon leading to the man-made dam near the town of Silves ahead of the official start of the search tomorrow (TUE). Scotland Yard detectives are understood to have travelled to the area but only with a “watching brief”.

The search is expected to last for at least two days but could last longer if anything of relevance is uncovered.

The search will be the first major operation of its kind since June 2014 when British police were given permission to do digs in Praia da Luz that involved sniffer dogs trained in detecting bodies and ground-penetrating radar.

This time round expert divers are set to explore the murky depths of the dam but digs will also take place in woodland by the water.

The area which will be searched is the Barragem do Arade reservoir near Silves where a lorry driver says he saw a woman handing a child-like Madeleine McCann over to a man two days after she went missing from her Praia da Luz holiday apartment on May 3 2007.

It was searched twice in February and March 2008 by divers hired by a Portuguese lawyer.

Marcos Aragao Correia organised the privately-funded operation after claiming he had been tipped off by underworld contacts that

Madeleine had been murdered and her body thrown into the reservoir within 48 hours of her disappearance.

Two bags containing small bones were found during the second search after divers had earlier recovered several lengths of cord, some plastic tape and a single white cotton sock.

Portuguese police were alerted following the discovery but subsequently ruled out the possibility the bones were human because of their size.

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