Police have started a significant new hunt for evidence 16 years after Madeleine McCann vanished from the holiday flat in the Algarve where she was sleeping next to her infant twin siblings.
The case of the missing three-year-old was reopened in 2020, when German prosecutors unveiled a fresh suspect after the case had lain dormant for several years following David Cameron's 2011 launch of an ultimately unsuccessful Metropolitan Police investigation.
To commemorate the anniversary of McCann's disappearance, her parents Kate and Gerry McCann published a brief statement on the Find Madeleine Campaign website earlier this month.
They said: “Today marks the 16th anniversary of Madeleine’s abduction. Still missing… still very much missed. It is hard to find the words to convey how we feel.
“The police investigation continues, and we await a breakthrough.”
When did the investigation start and how much has it cost so far? Here are the key details.
The search for Madeleine McCann so far
Soon after the toddler’s disappearance, Portuguese police said they believed Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment and her parents had covered it up, particularly after misinterpreting a British DNA analysis.
In September 2007, the McCanns were assigned suspect status, which was later removed when Portugal's attorney general archived the case in July 2008 due to a lack of evidence.
Up until Scotland Yard launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, in 2011, McCann’s parents continued the investigation using private investigators.
Operation Grange was scaled back in 2015, but the remaining detectives continued to pursue a small number of inquiries.
In 2020, police in the German city of Braunschweig stated there was a new suspect in McCann’s disappearance.
Christian Brueckner, a 43-year-old convicted child molester who was imprisoned in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman two years before McCann vanished from the same resort, has been made a formal suspect but maintains he had no connection to the missing child, and has not been charged with any specific crime related to Madeleine’s disappearance.
At a reservoir about 30 miles from the Praia da Luz resort, international authorities undertook a major new search in May, based on leads suggesting Brueckner made frequent trips to the location he called his “little slice of paradise”.
According to Portuguese news channel SIC, four teams of police officers from the Policia Judiciaria in Portugal and at least 20 of their German counterparts are involved in the operation.
How much has the investigation cost so far?
The Home Office increased funds for the Metropolitan Police this fiscal year by £110,000 (€127,000), a decrease from just over £300,000 (€345,000) previous year, to help in the search for McCann.
Since 2011, Operation Grange has received around £13.1 million (€15 million) in total financing.
Although the amount of money expended by German and Portuguese authorities is unknown, Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro, Lisbon's former attorney general, claimed in 2012 that the hunt for McCann had been the most expensive in the nation's history.
