Former British detective Mark Williams-Thomas has publicly questioned the credibility of the latest search operation in Portugal, calling the intelligence behind it “very sketchy.” His blunt assessment has reignited fierce debate over whether investigators are chasing solid leads — or grasping at straws. Meanwhile, insiders hint a bold new theory is quietly circulating behind closed doors, one that could rewrite everything we thought we knew about Madeleine’s disappearance. Could authorities be following the wrong trail entirely?

Animal bones are reported to be among limited findings after a three-day search for forensic evidence in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann case, who vanished from a holiday home in Portugal 18 years ago, was called off.

Local media said some material had been gathered on Wednesday and sent for analysis to see if it contained anything relevant to the investigation.

German investigators were given until Friday to search an area between Praia da Luz and the cottage where he lived at the time of the toddler’s disappearance in 2007, but the search was wound up on Thursday.

Christian Brueckner, a suspect in case, is due to be released from prison within months.

A neighbour who lived near Brueckner around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance described him as “quite angry”, and said she would hear him having rows with his girlfriend.

Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann ramped up their hunt of scrubland and abandoned buildings on Wednesday with heavy machinery, including JCB and ground-penetrating radar.

Madeleine was three when she disappeared, sparking a Europe-wide police investigation.

German national Brueckner, who was formally identified as a suspect in 2022, has denied any involvement.

Vast search involving dozens of police and high-tech equipment to have cost £300,000, according to reports

Dozens of police from Germany and Portugal have spent three days scouring a 120-acre stretch of scrubland and abandoned buildings for clues about Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.

That effort, which ended on Thursday, is estimated to have cost at least £300,000, The Times reports.

The newspaper reports more than 60 officers have been involved in the hunt, and on Wednesday aerial drones were deployed and an excavator was brought in to help clear rubble.

Searchers also used ground penetrating radar, which can detect abnormalities underground, such as a hidden burial.

The search area is just a couple of miles from Praia de Luz and the Ocean Club resort where Madeleine had been sleeping before she vanished on May 3, 2007.

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Eighteen years after Madeleine McCann went missing from an apartment block in Praia Da Luz, the Independent’s crime correspondent Amy-Clare Martin discovers a coastal resort desperate to move on

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In pictures: The lastest search for clues in the Madeleine McCann case