Almost 19 and a half years after three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast, the private investigator originally hired by her parents has restated his determination to keep searching. Spanish detective Julián Peribañez, who began working on the case in 2008, says he still does not know whether Madeleine is alive, but refuses to abandon hope.

In a recent interview, Peribañez told the Olive Press that the uncertainty surrounding Madeleine’s fate remains profound. “I don’t know if she’s alive or not, because hardly anyone on Earth does,” he said. “But as long as I have hope, I won’t stop looking.” He continues to pursue his own lines of inquiry, separate from the main official investigations.

Peribañez was engaged by Kate and Gerry McCann roughly one year after their daughter vanished on the evening of May 3, 2007. That night, the couple had left Madeleine and her younger twin siblings asleep in their ground-floor apartment while they dined with friends at a nearby restaurant, checking on the children at regular intervals. When Kate returned to the apartment at around 10pm, she found Madeleine’s bed empty and a window open. The discovery triggered an immediate search that rapidly expanded into one of the most extensive and closely followed missing-person inquiries in modern history.

While British and German authorities have focused in recent years on German national Christian Brueckner as the prime suspect — after phone records placed him in the area on the night of the disappearance — Peribañez has long held a different view. He believes Madeleine was taken by an organised Eastern European trafficking network that was operating in the Algarve region at the time. He has appealed to residents and former residents of the Algarve who may have encountered people matching a particular profile, asking them to come forward with any relevant information. “If you’ve had encounters with people who fit the profile, please reach out,” he said. “All I need is a name. Give me a name, and I’ll chase it wherever I have to.”

Official investigations, including Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange and parallel work by German prosecutors, have examined thousands of leads across Europe. Brueckner was publicly identified as a suspect in 2020, but no charges relating to Madeleine’s disappearance have been filed against him. Separate legal proceedings involving him in Germany have continued, yet the core question of what happened to Madeleine on that May evening in 2007 remains unanswered.

For Peribañez, the case became more than a professional ᴀssignment. He has described it as an investigation that redirected the course of his life, leading him into wider efforts against child exploitation. Even as official inquiries have shifted focus and public attention has ebbed and flowed over the years, he has continued to follow independent leads. His latest comments reaffirm that, nearly two decades on, he remains committed to pursuing any credible information that emerges.

The disappearance of Madeleine McCann continues to generate periodic new developments and public interest. While the official investigation remains open and focused primarily on established lines of inquiry, Peribañez’s ongoing private efforts highlight the enduring determination of those still seeking answers nearly twenty years after the three-year-old vanished.

Sources : Daily Express