Almost 19 years after Madeleine McCann went missing there has been a major update in the search.
Funding for the search for the three-year-old who went missing in Portugal in 2007 has been extended.
Labelled Operation Grange, the investigation was launched in 2011, four years after she disappeared from a holiday home.
Home office ministers approved the request for the specialist Metropolitan Police team leading the investigation to receive more money, The Sunreports.
The team, which is now just three police officers and one member of staff working part-time, will receive £86,000 ($A166,000) for 2026/27.
Since it was first launched shortly after three-year-old Madeleine went missing from Praia da Luz in the Algarve, Portugal in 2007, Operation Grange has cost around £13.3 million ($A26 million).
Last year the inquiry was granted £108,000 ($A209,000) and in 2023/24 the search was given £110,000 ($A213,000) to help the hunt, as it was believed police were on the edge of a breakthrough.
There have been a number of fresh searches in recent years including the 2023 scouring of a reservoir and dam 30 miles from where the holiday resort the she vanished from, in hopes of finding her body.
In 2020 Christian Brueckner, 49, was named by German cops as the prime suspect in the disappearance and murder of the tot.
In June last year a search was called off at the end of the third day after it failed to nail suspect Christian to the case with DNA evidence.
Scores of cops painstakingly combed scrubland near Praia da Luz with JCBs, radar and fingertip searches, believing the tot or her pyjamas could have been buried there.
The Sun revealed that this search was ordered after key figures in the case were flown back to Germany to again give statements on the claims Brueckner kidnapped and killed the toddler in 2007.
He has never been formally charged over Madeleine’s disappearance and denies any involvement – but German cops are convinced he is guilty.
There was also a hard-drive of pictures, which German investigators continue to keep secret, that is believed to indicate why they are sure Madeleine is dead.
Earlier this month it was revealed that the 49-year-old convicted pedophile and rapist has moved back to his hometown of Braunschweig and his new flat is just yards from a school.
He has become a £1 million headache for police in Germany, requiring 24-hour surveillance since he was released from prison last September, when his term for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old woman expired.
Unsurprisingly he has struggled to settle in a number of neighbourhoods across northern Germany, as families regularly demand he be moved on.
Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann shared a heartfelt statement at the end of last year hoping New Year would bring “the breakthrough we long for”.
Posting to the Official Find Madeleine Campaign Facebook page, the couples said: “As 2025 draws to a close, we wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us, in whatever way, over the past year & for continuing to hope for positive news of Madeleine.”
This article originally appeared in The Sun and has been reproduced with permission.
