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Last ditch bid to chase new child trafficking lead in Maddie McCann case

A “last roll of the dice” in the decade-long search for missing British girl Madeleine McCann will see detectives chase down a tip suggesting child traffickers stalked the family days before kidnapping the child.

Scotland Yard detectives have been given an injection of funding to follow up a new lead in the case, which began in Portugal in 2007 when the then-three-year-old vanished from her parents’ hotel room.

“This is an important new line of inquiry which could provide an explanation on whether Madeleine was abducted and transported away,” a source told The Sun.

There have been multiple theories and leads on what happened to Maddie McCann. Source: Supplied.
There have been multiple theories and leads on what happened to Maddie McCann. Source: Supplied.

“It raises hope that she could still be alive.”

According to the paper, investigators have been told child traffickers from Europe had photographed Madeleine on the beach with her family days before snatching her from the hotel.

Portuguese authorities in 2011 cracked a trafficking ring which had been snatching children in the Algarve and Aveiro regions.

Parents Kate and Gerry McCann were dining with friends in 2007 when Madeleine vanished from their hotel room. Photo: AAP
Parents Kate and Gerry McCann were dining with friends in 2007 when Madeleine vanished from their hotel room. Photo: AAP

Investigators are now pushing to confirm or disprove the latest claim before their funding runs out in April.

It is unclear if more resources will be committed to the case after that.