http://www.sundayworld.com/top-stories/news/maddie-snatched-by-algarve-paedo-ring-say-cops?previewId=r39vkli#.Uk6mQBdR7a8.twitterSunday World
Maddie McCann was snatched by an Algarve paedo ring according to police
Friday 4th October 2013
By Gerard Couzens
Madeleine McCann
PORTUGUESE cops working on behalf of the Metropolitan Police in the UK are focusing on the theory Madeleine McCann was snatched by an Algarve-based paedophile ring, it was claimed on Friday.
A team of six Portuguese detectives are taking statements, searching police records and making other inquiries following a British police request for help, Met Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley revealed on Thursday
Local reports said they were working on the premise Madeleine, who was three-years-old when she vanished from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, may have been a victim of paedophile rings operating in the area.
Respected Portuguse daily Correio da Manha, quoting unnamed sources, said: "The work of the Policia Judiciaria inspectors is based on a line of investigation which points to paedophile rings operating in the Algarve."
The reports came as Met police raised hopes of a breakthrough in the case by revealing they had identified three new potential suspects after trawling through the phone data of holidaymakers from 31 countries who were in the Praia da Luz area when Madeleine disappeared.
The Met, which announced a £5million review of the case codenamed Operation Grange during the summer, is now examining 41 "people of interest" including 15 from the UK and said new evidence had been uncovered.
It also emerged on Thursday that Madeleine's parents Gerry and Kate will make a new appeal for information in the light of the "fresh, substantive material unearthed".
Investigators are expected to reveal a new theory that they say will give a "different understanding" about the case.
The programme, which will be screened on October 14, will feature a reconstruction of events the night of May 3, 2007, when Madeleine disappeared.
Equivalent programmes in Germany and the Netherlands, where most other tourists in Praia da Luz come from, will broadcast the material.
Kate McCann wrote of her fear her daughter was kidnapped by a paedophile in her May 2011 book on Madeleine's disappearance and the search for her.
She accused Portuguese police of covering up a series of child abuse sex cases before Madeleine went missing.
Kate and Gerry McCann
The McCanns were first warned of an alarming number of cases in the Algarve by British consul Bill Henderson.
When police made public their files on the case in the summer of 2008, Kate discovered five cases of British children being sexually abused in their beds while on holiday and while their parents slept in another room.
She wrote in her book: "It broke my heart to read the terrible accounts of these devastated parents and the experiences of their poor children.
"What these cases do demonstrate however, is that British tourists in holiday accommodation were being targeted.
"It is so hard not to scream from the rooftops about how these crimes appear to have been brushed under the carpet."
She has also revealed she is tortured by a belief an abuser is responsible for her daughter's disappearance.
She wrote in the book: "When Madeleine was first stolen, paedophiles were all we could think about, and it ate away at us.
"The truly awful manifestation of what I was feeling was a macabre slideshow of vivid pictures in my brain that taunted me relentlessly.
"I was crying out that I could see Madeleine lying, cold and mottled on a big grey stone slab.
"The idea of a monster like this touching my daughter, stroking her, defiling her perfect little body, just killed me over and over again."
Three paedophiles thought to have been in Portugal when Madeleine McCann vanished were said to have been put on a list of suspects British police drew up after announcing their review.
They included two Brits. One, child molester Raymond Hewlett, died in 2010 from throat cancer after refusing to speak to investigators hunting for Madeleine McCann.
One theory officers were said to be investigating was that Hewlett (64) snatched Madeleine to sell her to gypsies who were apparently trafficking children to Morocco. Scotland Yard has refused to discuss him.
Urs Hans von Aesch, who shot himself dead after kidnapping and murdering five-year-old Ylenia Lenhard in his native Switzerland, has also been put in the frame over Madeleine.
A new Portuguese police team was mobilised to make inquiries on missing Madeleine after Home Secretary Theresa May sent an official request for assistance to Portugal's Attorney General's office in July.
The Algarve-based officers are understood to work for the Policia Judiciaria's Faro-based southern division, the same division tasked with the original probe into Madeleine's disappearance headed by disgraced former police chief Goncalo Amaral.
He is currently being sued by Kate and Gerry over a controversial July 2008 book he wrote accusing them of covering up their daughter's death in their apartment by faking an abduction.
British police were expected to work along Portuguese police on the new inquiries but that has so far failed to materialise.
Pedro do Carmo, the Policia Judiciaria's National Deputy Director, refused to discuss the work Portuguese police were doing.
He said: "British authorities sent a rotatory letter to Portugal which was forwarded by the Public Prosecution Service to the Policia Judiciaria so it could be complied with in the normal way."
