Police were scouring the remote Barragem do Arade reservoir in the Algarve, Portugal last week, around 35 miles from where the then-three-year-old went missing in 2007 while on a family holiday in Praia da Luz
Soil from a reservoir in Portugal searched by police last month is being compared with samples from main suspect Christian Brueckner’s camper van, it has been reported.
Detectives believe Brueckner visited the remote Barragem do Arade reservoir in Portugal’s Algarve region days after Madeleine disappeared.
Officials now believe they can prove that Brueckner’s van was in the area at the time the three-year-old was abducted , sources told The Daily Mirror.
The insider claimed that if the soil sample analysis reveals a “positive match”, police may be able to further “close the net” around Brueckner, 45, who has not yet been charged.
Earlier, a forensics expert warned that “traditional” evidence will be difficult to find after 16 years have passed since Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.
Dan Matthews said that investigators would have searched the remote reservoir in Portugal for “things that could’ve stood the test of time and not been destroyed by its passage”, such as clothing fragments or jewelry.
