Madeleine McCann detectives set to get £100,000 boost for investigation
Detectives involved in missing toddler Madeleine McCann will receive a massive £100,000 grant to help further their investigation, it has been revealed.
The new grant comes as the Metropolitan Police have already received a whopping £13 million from the UK government since 2011.
The McCann family were staying at the resort in Praia da Luz, in Portugal’s Algarve region, when Madeleine went missing from their holiday apartment in 2007 when she was just three years old.
The unit tasked with searching for the missing tot is called ‘Operation Grange’ and has continued the search for Maddie years after her disappearance.
The MailOnline revealed today that further funding will now be allocated to help find the tot.
A source close to the McCann family said: ‘This is very welcome news – Kate and Gerry have never given up hope and nor will they, finding Madeleine or what happened to her is paramount to them.
‘They are eternally grateful to the officers from Operation Grange and are being kept in touch on aspects of the hunt and the police obviously have leads if a request for funding has been made.’
The new funding was confirmed just days after a new update with one of the prime suspects in Madeleine’s disappearance was shared.
It was revealed that German criminal Christian Brueckner, 47, lived just a 12-minute drive from the Ocean Club tapas bar frequented by Kate and Gerry McCann.
Brueckner worked cash-in-hand at the restaurant, according to claims from a British acquaintance, Ken Ralphs, MailOnline reported.
This may have given him access to a booking ledger showing staff that McCann’s children would be alone that night.
Ralphs, who knew Brueckner at the time, claims the German man recruited a mutual friend as part of a plot to kidnap a child just a week before Madeleine disappeared.
They intended to sell the youngster to a childless couple, the 59-year-old claimed.
But he believes the extensive media coverage highlighting a distinctive mark in Madeleine’s eye made it impossible to sell her.
Ralphs fears they felt they had no choice but to ‘dispose’ of Madeleine after they kidnapped her while her parents were out with friends dubbed ‘The Tapas Seven’.
He took his suspicions to police in both Portugal and the UK immediately after Madeleine’s disappearance.
But he still doesn’t know if they ever used the information in their investigations – and he’s not alone.
Brueckner was named as the chief suspect in the case by German prosecutors in 2020, more than 13 years after Madeleine vanished.
He’s never been charged in connection with the case and he denies having any involvement in her disappearance.
Brueckner is currently in a German prison for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in her Praia da Luz home in 2005.
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