#Portuguese police launch search for Madeleine McCann’s remains

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Madeleine McCann; suspect Christian Brueckner
HANDOUT/METROPOLITAN POLICE/AFP via Getty Images; Carabinieri via AP

Police in southern Portugal are searching wells near the resort town where a British toddler went missing 14 years ago after uncovering evidence that links a German drifter to her disappearance, according to reports.

The search is in Vila do Bispo in the Portuguese Algarve, not far from the resort town of Praia da Luz, where Madeleine McCann vanished in May 2007,  the Sun newspaper reported.

Authorities launched their hunt based on “fundamental evidence” that tied Christian Brueckner, 43, to McCann’s disappearance, according to the Sun, which didn’t detail what the evidence was.

Besides police, firefighters have been called in to help with the search; they are ”looking for a body,” Portuguese broadcaster RTP reported.

RTP also linked Brueckner, a convicted rapist and child molester, to another disappearance in resort town of Silves, but gave no details.

Brueckner had fled from Germany to Portugal in 1994 after being convicted of the sexual abuse of a child in Germany.