Missing Madeleine McCann Investigators 'Tipped Off' To Suspect Christian Brueckner's Beachfront Lair At Portuguese Reservoir, Private Eye Says
An international team of investigators is targeting a specific section of a Portuguese reservoir where they believe Madeleine McCann’s body may have been dumped, a private detective close to the case exclusively revealed to RadarOnline.com.
Julian Peribanez, a Barcelona-based gumshoe who was part of the 2008 dive search at the same reservoir, said German authorities most likely received information pin-pointing the shoreline where the lead suspect and convicted pedophile Christian Brueckner liked to camp out.
“Obviously our team or the German police are not capable of covering the entire reservoir because it is huge and they are only going to be there for a couple of days,” Peribanez told RadarOnline.com.
“They are choosing a very specific place where they think Christian Brueckner spent some time. Obviously, they think it could be the place where he could get rid of the body," he said.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, a team of German and Portuguese divers and forensic investigators descended upon the Barragem do Arade reservoir about 30 miles northeast of the beachfront resort town of Praia da Luz where the 3-year-old British girl vanished in 2007 while on vacation with her parents.
The team, which includes investigators from Scotland Yard, is fanning out to meticulously search a 5,300 square foot land area along the shoreline and divers are expected to search the reservoir’s murky waters near the spot the convicted rapist called his ‘Little Paradise.’
The Barragem do Arade reservoir is about 15 miles west of the rural village of Foral where the German creep lived in a run-down villa and was known to spend nights along the shoreline in a beat-up yellow and white VW camper van.
The search party also included a cadaver dog, according to the UK’s Sky News.
Peribanez, the Barcelona-based private investigator who has spent nearly two decades searching for Madeleine, told RadarOnline.com the German authorities mostly likely learned about the location from one of Brueckner’s friends.
“They are conducting the search in a very specific point of the reservoir because they think this guy is the one that kidnapped and killed Madeleine – so obviously they think a spot that he would use to get rid of her body would be a place that only he knows and that is obviously secluded,” he told RadarOnline.com.
The massive Barragem do Arade reservoir can hold about 3.6 billion cubic gallons of water and reaches depths of up to 150 feet.
“The German police most likely got the testimony from Christian Brueckner’s friends who told them that he usually went to that certain place– and that he would spend days there,” Peribanez said. “You can just imagine Christian Brueckner’s friends – they are petty criminals, thugs, drunks, and drug addicts – that’s the people he moved around with.”
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Brueckner, 43, is currently sitting behind bars in Germany on an unrelated rape case. He was recently charged in Portugal with several sex crimes spanning over a 17-year period ending in 2017 – including vicious attacks in the same resort where McCann vanished.
Shortly after Brueckner was named a suspect, German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters announced that fibers believed to have been from Madeleine’s personal belongings were found in the back of the VW campervan.
Wolters said the two-day search was based on a “tip-off” but refused to provide additional details.
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On the day she vanished, Madeleine had been left with her 2-year-old twin siblings in the unlocked rental while her mother and father, Kate and Gerry McCann, enjoyed a meal with friends at a nearby restaurant just 130 feet away. After checking on the kids every so often, Kate was shocked to discover that Madeleine was gone, noticing there was an open window.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Brueckner has regularly denied any involvement in the 3-year-old’s disappearance.
Divers searched the reservoir twice in a privately funded 2008 operation where rope and a bag filled with bone fragments were recovered -- but they later turned out to be the remains of a cat, Peribanez said.
“We turned over all the evidence to the Scotland Yard and the UK’s Metropolitan Police,” he said.
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