Madeleine McCann’s disappearance has puzzled detectives for 16 years – but in 2020 a new potential suspect emerged.

Now, police are searching a remote reservoir in Portugal’s Algarve that he used to visit in a renewed effort to shed further light on the case.

German prisoner Christian Brueckner was first named in connection with the unsolved mystery that summer, and officially named as a suspect last year.

His yellow and white VW T3 Westfalia campervan was reportedly identified as having been near to the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal where the young girl went missing on 3 May 2007.

Watch live as police search a reservoir in Portugal on Tuesday, 23 May, in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Portuguese authorities, assisted by German police, have set up tents an area near the Barragem do Arade reservoir, around 50km (31 miles) from where the toddler went missing aged three in Praia da Luz in 2007.

Searches are being conducted at the request of German police in the presence of British officers.

According to reports, this is the fourth search for Madeleine McCann, following the initial one in 2007 in the Algarve area and further efforts in 2013 and 2014.

Another search was held in Germany in 2020, when officials said that a 45-year-old German citizen, identified as Christian Brueckner, who was in the Algarve in 2007, was a suspect in the case.

Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005.

He is under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case but hasn’t been charged. He spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz, around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.

As investigators renew their search for Madeleine McCann, here’s a timeline of events in the disappearance:

3 May 2007: Madeleine is reported missing from a vacation apartment in the town of Praia da Luz in the Algarve resort region. Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, left her asleep with two smaller siblings while they had dinner at a nearby restaurant.

6 May 2007: Police say there is evidence the girl was abducted, and appeal for her return.

11 May 2007: David Beckham and other football stars appeal for Madeleine’s safe return. Police in Portugal scale down local searches, saying the case has become an international investigation.

12 May 2007: Madeleine McCann’s fourth birthday.

Police officers investigating the reservoir appear to have collected bags of evidence during the search.

Several bags were carried away from the site, although it is not clear what they contained. German prosecutors confirmed they were searching the reservoir but were unable to provide further details “for tactical reasons.”

Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters told German state broadcaster NDR that they “have grounds to believe” they could find evidence in the area.

Mr Wolters previously said they were unable to provide any “concrete information” on what sparked the latest search.

“They are not tips that come from the accused… but you can imagine that we don`t start searching somewhere in Portugal on the off chance, but that there must be a good reason for it,” he said.

Police resumed their search of a remote reservoir in Portugal yesterday as the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann continues.

Dozens of officers descended on the Barragem do Arade reservoir to find the toddler who went missing 16 years ago from an apartment complex on the Algarve.

The site of the search is around 30 miles from Praia da Luz, the flats in the municipality of Lagos, where Madeleine disappeared on 3 May, 2007.

Police officers searching for Madeleine McCann are scouring a lake in Portugal for the pink pajamas the British toddler was wearing when she vanished in 2007, Daily Mail reported, citing sources.

The officers acting on “credible information” are seeking any fragments of clothing and old rags that could be related to her disappearance.

Investigators took “a number of bags” away from the remote Algarve reservoir yesterday, according to the report.

Investigators were seen digging near a reservoir in Portugal in a long-running probe into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

The Arade dam is 50km from Praia da Luz, where the British toddler went missing 16 years ago.

The operation is being led by German police looking for evidence to link her disappearance to suspect Christian Brueckner.

Sniffer dogs were used in a search of the reservoir’s banks, and police officers went out into the water on an inflatable boat, BBC reported.

Uniformed and plain-clothed police officers spent hours scouring the scrubland, using pickaxes and inspecting small rocks with rakes and spades.

While British authorities have disclosed the millions spent on Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange, launched in 2011, German and Portuguese authorities have not revealed exactly how much their efforts to find Madeleine McCann have cost.

However, in 2012, Portugal’s then-attorney general is reported to have claimed that the search for the missing girl had been the most expensive in the country’s history.

The last search for evidence in the case in Portugal came in 2014, when British police were given permission to examine scrubland near where she vanished.