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Madeleine McCann

Praia da Luz, Portugal · 3 May 2007 · 19 years ago

Case information Active investigation Missing person

British toddler, age 3, disappeared from apartment 5A of Ocean Club on the evening of 3 May 2007. Eighteen years later remains unsolved. Metropolitan Police Service has conducted Operation Grange since 2011 as an open investigation. Various hypotheses and suspects have been examined; no conclusion reached.

Subject: Madeleine Beth McCann · 3 years · View map ↗

More about this case

Madeleine McCann disappeared during a family holiday in Praia da Luz on the Algarve. Her parents Kate and Gerry McCann dined in the adjacent Tapas restaurant with a group of friends, and took turns checking on the sleeping children in the apartments. Around 22:00, Kate McCann discovered that Madeleine was no longer in bed. The Portuguese PJ (Polícia Judiciária) launched an investigation led by Chief Inspector Gonçalo Amaral, who was removed from the case six months later. In 2011, the British Metropolitan Police took over the investigation under the codename Operation Grange, initially intended as a 'review' but later expanded into a full investigation with funding via a Home Office Special Grant. The case remains formally open. In 2020, the German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) identified Christian Brückner as the principal suspect in the German investigation, although no charges have been filed.

Timeline

  1. 2007-04-28 McCann family arrives at Ocean Club Praia da Luz
  2. 2007-05-03 Disappearance discovered ~22:00 by Kate McCann
  3. 2007-05-04 British ambassador and Foreign Office on scene
  4. 2007-09-07 Kate and Gerry McCann receive arguido status
  5. 2007-10-02 Gonçalo Amaral removed from the case
  6. 2008-07-21 Portuguese investigation archived; arguido status lifted
  7. 2011-05-12 Metropolitan Police launches Operation Grange
  8. 2020-06-03 BKA identifies Christian Brückner as suspect
  9. 2024-10-08 Brückner acquitted in separate Portuguese rape case

Sources

  • PJ Processos (Portuguese police file) — ~30 volumes, 30.000+ pagina's
  • Operation Grange FOI-responses — ~400 requests
  • Media coverage — Uitgebreid UK/PT/DE
  • Wikipedia articles — EN, NL, DE, PT

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@processo_reader · 08 Sep McCann

Watermarks and stamps: which Processo volumes carry the 'confidencial' stamp?

Vols. 1-3 carry the initial classification. Vols. 5-7 were re-classified after arquivamento (archiving) in 2008. Vol. 22 (Rogatorias) partially. The stamps do not indicate current legal status — they are historical PJ ma…

Vols. 1-3 carry the initial classification. Vols. 5-7 were re-classified after arquivamento (archiving) in 2008. Vol. 22 (Rogatorias) partially. The stamps do not indicate current legal status — they are historical PJ markings.

1 Sources

ORIGINAL

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  1. 1
    Processo Vol. 5 · page 1

    “confidencial · arquivado”

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