Overview

• Roughly 30 German officers have been inspecting two wells near Praia da Luz where Brueckner once lived in a camper
• The operation includes searching cisterns, ruined buildings and small rural plots near Lagos using georadar to detect human remains or trace DNA
• German prosecutors secured a European investigation order authorizing Portuguese police to carry out the searches with Britain’s Metropolitan Police kept informed
• Christian Brueckner, 48, is serving a seven-year sentence in Germany for the 2005 rape of a US tourist and faces potential release in September
• New leads emerged from digital evidence seized in Brueckner’s cell and testimony from a former inmate that spurred the latest searches