Police in Germany investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are expected to publish the results of their secretive recent dig in Portugal.
Mirror UK has reported that detectives from the Federal Criminal Police (BKA) - Germany’s equivalent of the FBI - spent days searching land next to the Arade Dam last week.
Sniffer dogs, radar and search teams scoured the area which is located 50km from where three-year-old Madeleine vanished in 2007.
READ MORE: Madeleine McCann latest as parents issue heartbreaking statement saying 'we await a breakthrough'
Prime suspect Christian Brueckner, 45, had once referred to the location as his "little paradise".
Following the dig, police left behind two-foot deep bore holes and it is believed the soil they recovered from them is being forensically analysed in Germany.
It had been thought that this analysis, which could lead to vital clues about Maddie's disappearance, could take months. But Mirror UK has been told the results could be revealed as soon as Thursday.
It still remains unclear as to exactly why investigators decided to thoroughly search the land near the dam.
Police teams were seen methodically chopping down trees and hacking away at undergrowth to expose an area a short distance from the water.
Photos appear to show the remains of a camp at the mysterious spot with broken furniture, a torn ship’s buoy and what appeared to be a makeshift toilet fashioned from a chair.
Portuguese sources have pointed to an informant giving police a specific tip-off that Brueckner visited the site just days after Maddie went missing from her room in Praia da Luz.
This claim is believed to have been matched with geolocation clues found in the convicted paedophile's vile stash of 8,000 of videos and images. Together it is thought these clues combined sparked the search at the remote site.
It was claimed they were searching for a camcorder and a gun tossed into the water, but Portuguese police sources were quick to dismiss that.
Regardless of what is found at the site, top German criminal profiler Axel Petermann, says the police were right to dig at a place so close to Brueckner's heart.
He told The Mirror: “The criminal perpetrators who I got to know over the years tend to hide their victims in places where they feel safe and can assess danger.
“These are places which are secluded and secret and where they can stop and assess various risks. They can also be places where they feel good, and where there is a certain private memory of a certain act. So, I think the search activity may have been going in this direction.
“My recommendation when dealing with suspects in the case of missing people, is always to find the places where these suspects spent time, where they had secrets, where they could assess risks, so from this point of view I think the investigators’ current search was very important.
“You must always delve into the life of the suspect so you can find out about their preferences, their tendencies, their favourites locations where they liked to spend time.
“And I don’t think you can really find any better possibilities than to look in secret, confidential locations.”
Brueckner, who is currently behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old American woman at her Algarve home in 2005, has always denied he has anything to do with Madeleine's disappearance.
He is currently due for release in 2026 and argues that police and prosecutors are “attempting to create a monster” to “divert and let people think that I am the right one”.
But chief public prosecutor Hans-Christian Wolters, who is pursuing the case against Brueckner, has said in the past they have “concrete evidence” that tragic Madeleine is dead and believe Brueckner killed her.
Wolters confirmed that they will be making an announcement about the results of the dig soon. But he suggested that his investigation team may not have discovered any crucial evidence just yet.
Speaking to Mirror UK, Mr Wolters said: “We will issue a short press release. But please don't expect too much, especially nothing spectacular.”
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