Overview

• German and Portuguese officers began field operations Monday in Praia da Luz at the request of German prosecutors
• Investigators secured permission to search private tracts at Atalaia, focusing on two wells about ten minutes from the McCanns’ holiday apartment
• Christian Brueckner remains the primary suspect after his 2020 identification and is serving a seven-year sentence in Germany for a 2005 rape with a possible release in September
• Probing has been driven by Brueckner’s alleged confession to a cellmate and by disturbing materials found in a shed he once owned
• The current phase of searches is set to conclude on June 6, with all collected evidence to be handed over to German authorities