UPDATES ONLY ON DIGGING AND ACTIVITY IN PDL

Poe wrote:Tony Stewart ‏@TellyTone 3m
Forensic team prepare to go back into the tents covering the pit #praiadaluz #mccann. pic.twitter.com/kcN6W26Gol

uppatoffee wrote:article in the guardian today http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/05/madeleine-mccann-police-fourth-day-praia-da-luz-scrubland

Madeleine McCann: police begin fourth day of Praia da Luz scrubland search
Officers continue scouring patch of overgrown land including concealed shaft discovered beneath sheet of corrugated iron

• Josh Halliday and Brendan de Beer in Praia da Luz
  
• theguardian.com, Thursday 5 June 2014 10.45 BST
  

[size=12]British police with sniffer dogs check an area of scrubland during the search in the Praia da Luz. Photograph: Philip Toscano/PA

Detectives using sniffer dogs have begun a fourth day of searches in dense scrubland a short walk from where Madeleine McCann was last seen alive seven years ago.
Officers continued scouring the patch of overgrown land on Thursday morning using two springer spaniels that were deployed in the search for murdered schoolgirl April Jones.
As detectives returned to the 15-acre site in the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz, more details emerged about two key search sites that have become the focus of the investigation over the past three days.
One of the sites is a concealed shaft in the ground discovered by detectives beneath a sheet of corrugated iron. Forensic officers wearing protective clothing and face masks examined the site for several hours on Wednesday, erecting a white tent to shield their work from the glare of the world's media.
Police search land and undergrowth in the Portuguese resort. Photograph: Virgilio Rodrigues/Barcroft Medi
Portuguese newspapers reported on Thursday that this site was a disused storage box where children used to play. The shaft, measuring around 5ft by 3ft (150cm by 90cm), was covered by mounds of earth and a corrugated iron sheet, which is thought to have concealed the hole for years.
Another key area of interest for detectives was said to be a grave-like hole, where officers used ground penetrating radar before erecting a white tent and carrying out digging work.
Under the headline "False grave deceives geo-radar", the newspaper Correia da Manhã reported that a site "with characteristics similar to a grave" was discovered but officers later concluded that it was "not compatible with that of a body".
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, the Scotland Yard officer leading the operation, spent about an hour at this site with British officers and Faro's Polícia Judiciária director, Mota Carmo, on Wednesday, inspecting the discovery himself from inside the police tent.
Detectives will on Thursday examine the sewerage system below the hilly scrubland using micro-cameras and fibre-optic cables, according to Correia da Manhã.
Redwood and his team of British investigators arrived at the search site at 9.30am on Thursday, declining to speak to journalists as his accreditation was checked by armed Portuguese police officers guarding the parameter of the site.
Scotland Yard has formally applied to extend the ground-level searches into next week.
The operation was initially expected to end on Friday but progress has been slow in the meticulous search a short distance from where the then three-year-old girl was last seen in 2007.
The painstaking investigative work, which began on Monday, is being delayed by a need to clear the sites using strimmers and chainsaws.
It is expected that the searches will now stretch into a second week, after Scotland Yard applied to extend the operation as they await formal approval from Portuguese police.
Madeleine's parents, Kate, 46, and Gerry, 45, are being kept abreast of developments in the first ground-level search since those conducted immediately after her disappearance in May 2007.


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uppatoffee wrote:Josh Halliday ‏

[ltr]@JoshHalliday[/ltr]

1m
Two officers have prized open a manhole in Madeleine McCann search area

uppatoffee wrote:
Josh Halliday ‏@JoshHalliday
1m
Officers now lowering a black rod, presumably containing fibre optic cameras, into the sewer #madeleine

uppatoffee wrote:Josh Halliday ‏


[ltr]@JoshHalliday[/ltr]


1m
Officer in British police uniform on hands and knees inspecting the prized-open shaft and making notes

uppatoffee wrote:Josh Halliday ‏

[ltr]@JoshHalliday[/ltr]

1m
This manhole is about 20ft from where officers used ground penetrating radar yesterday #madeleine

whatliesbeneaththesofa wrote:
Josh Halliday @JoshHalliday  ·  3m
This manhole is about 20ft from where officers used ground penetrating radar yesterday #madeleine

Josh Halliday @JoshHalliday  ·  4m
Officer in British police uniform on hands and knees inspecting the prized-open shaft and making notes

Josh Halliday @JoshHalliday  ·  5m
Officers now lowering a black rod, presumably containing fibre optic cameras, into the sewer #madeleine

Josh Halliday @JoshHalliday  ·  6m
Two officers have prized open   a manhole in Madeleine McCann search area

Josh Halliday @JoshHalliday  ·  59m
This is separate to two key sites where Madeleine McCann police have been focusing work in past four days

Josh Halliday @JoshHalliday  ·  1h
DCI Redwood just visited a third site where five officers are clearing undergrowth using pickaxe, shovels and rakes

Josh Halliday @JoshHalliday  ·  2h
DCI Andy Redwood, the officer leading the Madeleine McCann search, has arrived. Said "bom dia" to local cops but no word to media :-(

Josh Halliday @JoshHalliday  ·  2h
Madeleine McCann search: two police sniffer dogs who searched for April Jones  returned this morn to Praia da Luz scrubland

uppatoffee wrote:Jon Kay ‏@jonkay01
7m
McCann Search: Officers have started opening-up manhole covers and are searching drains with probe devices. pic.twitter.com/V2CFySKqtH
Details


Jon Kay ‏@jonkay01
1h
Day 4 in Madeleine McCann search. Officers return to investigate an area analysed with underground radar yesterday. pic.twitter.com/2b5PVtdY3z
Details

whatliesbehindthesofa wrote:LATEST NEWS

Joana Morais ‏@xklamation 54s
Diário de Noticias @dntwit reports that some inorganic material was found, it might be clothes or any other object. #McCann

daffodil wrote:LATEST NEWS




Madeleine McCann: police investigate sewerage system in Praia da Luz
Officers continue scouring patch of scrubland including concealed shaft, as others use micro-cameras to inspect drains

• Josh Halliday and Brendan de Beer in Praia da Luz
  
  
  
  
• theguardian.com, Thursday 5 June 2014 12.22 BST
  
  

British police with sniffer dogs check an area of scrubland during the search in the Praia da Luz. Photograph: Philip Toscano/PA
Detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have opened manholes and begun searching drains in the Portuguese holiday resort where she went missing in 2007.
A team of British and Portuguese police officers lifted off three manhole covers and used a micro-camera on a long stick to search the underground sewerage system in Praia da Luz on Thursday.
The manholes are around 20ft from a grave-like hole discovered on Wednesday by officers using ground penetrating radar. Around two dozen journalists, holidaymakers and residents looked on as the work was carried out on a road that borders the 15-acre area of scrubland where the search began on Monday.

sofieellis wrote:New post on the Official Facebook page:

Official Find Madeleine Campaign
42 minutes ago
We would like to ask people to refrain from spreading rumours and speculation based on inaccurate press reporting. We are kept updated on the on-going work in Portugal and are encouraged by the progress.

Thank you for continuing to stand by us and supporting our efforts to get Madeleine home.

Gerry and Kate

whatliesbehindthesofa wrote:Comment on the OFM latest post:

Official Find Madeleine Campaign
To those commenting on why Gerry and Kate are not in Portugal, it's because they were asked to not go there. Please let the police do their job.

And anyone posting their sanctimonious comments about leaving children alone will be banned. No questions asked. We've heard it all before. ENOUGH with the judging.

~FM Webmaster

Silver Shuffle wrote:As Metropolitan police are reported to be extending their on-site investigations in and around Praia da Luz - and the Portuguese press is full of reports on how they have “got it all wrong” - a military helicopter has been “extremely busy” flying in and out of a nearby airfield. Locals who have been watching the flights are beginning to wonder. “Is there something we are not being told?” one queried. In Praia da Luz, police searches thus far appear to have yielded no more than a few animal bones, a sock and a local children’s ‘hidden away’ play hole - but with British police on a tight rein from local authorities who have warned them not to talk about the investigation to the press, it could be that certain developments are underway. What is certain is that a military helicopter has been flying in and out of Lagos airfield since dawn on Thursday morning. “It’s like musical helicopters down here,” our source reported, suggesting that “if any material is found, I suppose it would be fast-tracked to wherever the labs are”. Meantime, Portuguese press has been scathing of the high-profile police search that is using georadar, sniffer dogs and upwards of 30 uniformed officers. Former PJ chief inspector and current TV commentator Carlos Anjos has suggested that the land being searched so minutely by the Met “has been gone over before by everyone. This work makes no sense at all,” he said on television earlier in the week. Also damning is the former detective who led investigations when Madeleine first went missing. Talking to reporters, Gonçalo Amaral said the theory that Madeleine may have been murdered and then buried nearby by someone who broke into the apartment with robbery in mind is simply “not believable”. This is, nonetheless, the theory that newspapers report British detectives are running with. Whether or not this theory is a blind - along with reports of animal bones and the odd sock - is another question entirely. - See more at: http://portugalresident.com/military-helicopter-%E2%80%9Cvery-busy%E2%80%9D-near-madeleine-dig-site#sthash.TjADuush.dpuf

Cheshire Cat wrote:Another article which I feel merits its own thread. It's another one of those 'unhelpful' articles.

http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2014/06/phone-calls-frame-maddie-kidnappers.html

English Police say that Maddie McCann assassins are Portuguese and are involved in drug trafficking

by Tânia Laranjo/Rui Pando Gomes

They are Portuguese and have a criminal record for drug trafficking. The English police states that they assaulted the apartment at the Ocean Club resort, in Lagos, and killed Madeleine McCann on 3 May 2007.

The phone calls made before and after the crime were used as evidence to support the searches that have been ongoing since Monday.

Scotland Yard also ensures that there is a British witness who saw one of the men carrying a child in his arms up to the wasteland, situated less than 500 meters from the resort. The British say that he fled, but before he was able to bury the girl's cadaver.

They want to hear the three suspects, but they still lack the evidence to support the claim.

“Those who are going to commit a robbery do not travel on foot and they will not abandon a body so close to the crime scene. Moreover, there were no signs of forced entry at the apartment”, said Gonçalo Amaral, the former PJ inspector who investigated the case and considers that this new theory is not credible.

This version is, incidentally, one among others contained in the letter rogatory which determined that the searches would take place. Though it is the strongest, the British open the door to other possibilities. Other five suspects are listed, they also have a criminal record for theft.

Seven years after the disappearance, the British police now guarantees to the Public Prosecutor's Office that their claim was well founded. The description given by a British holidaymaker coincides with one of the suspects who lives nearby. The woman saw him speaking in English on the phone, as he passed, carrying the child in his arms.

in Correio da Manhã, June 6, 2014

rustyjames wrote:From Twitter.....

Tony Stewart ‏@TellyTone 3h
Police now searching higher up the Mound, also digging at side of perimeter road. #praiadaluz #mccann pic.twitter.com/TvMCTcPwlC

and .....

Alex Littlewood ‏@westnewsprod 2h
Dog teams searching SW corner of the site in central Praia da Luz. This is other side from focus last 3 days. #mccann pic.twitter.com/Ifa9D8pF0v

daffodil wrote:Madeleine McCann detectives begin fifth day of searches in Praia da Luz scrubland
The searches are taking place a short walk from the Ocean Club apartment where Madeleine was last seen alive in May 2007

• Josh Halliday and Brendan de Beer in Praia da Luz
  
• theguardian.com, Friday 6 June 2014 11.35 BST
  

Scotland Yard detectives work with sniffer dogs on an area during the search for Madeleine McCann in Praia da Luz. Photograph: Rafael Marchante/REUTERS


Detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have begun a fifth day of searches in scrubland a short walk from where she was last seen alive seven years ago.
A team of Scotland Yard officers arrived in the Portuguese holiday resort Praia da Luz shortly before 10am on Friday as the search of the 15-acre area prepared to draw to a close.
Officers are expected to spend another two days searching this dense area of scrubland before expanding the operation to two further sites next week.
On Thursday night, Kate and Gerry McCann, who have not travelled toPortugal, urged people to "refrain from spreading rumours" as theybroke their silence on the latest police operation.

Sceptic wrote:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-prime-suspects-quizzed-3654136