Madeleine McCann disappeared in 2007 (Image: METROPOLITAN POLICE/AFP via Gett)
A Spanish private investigator who once worked for the McCann family fund has claimed he has identified the Eastern European trafficking gang responsible for snatching three-year-old Madeleine from her holiday apartment in Praia da Luz nearly two decades ago. Julian Peribanez, who served on the investigation team funded by Kate and Gerry McCann between 2008 and 2010, made the assertion in a recent interview on the Golden Circle podcast that has racked up more than 540,000 views in a month.
Now chairman of the non-profit Guardians of Innocence, which fights child sexual exploitation, Mr Peribanez says self-funded fieldwork in Portugal has pointed him to a specific organised group that was operating in the Algarve until shortly before May 2007. He said: “After new fieldwork, I believe I have identified those responsible,” describing an Eastern European trafficking network driven out of the region in the months leading up to the disappearance. He is careful not to name individuals publicly but insists the trail is solid enough to pursue.
Madeleine vanished on the evening of May 3, 2007, while her parents dined with friends nearby. The case remains one of the most heavily scrutinised missing-child investigations in modern history. Portuguese police initially focused on the parents before clearing them.
Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange later took over a review, while German authorities named convicted sex offender Christian Bruckner as the prime suspect in 2020. No charges have ever been brought against Bruckner over Madeleine, and Mr Peribanez has long questioned that line of inquiry.
In the podcast, Mr Peribanez outlined three fresh leads. First is the trafficking gang he says matches the timeline and method. Second is a potential piece of forensic material that has never been properly checked. In 2023, an underage victim of sextortion discovered photographs of a girl aged seven or eight on a child-abuse website.
Facial-recognition software Face++ returned a “very high” probability match with Madeleine. Guardians of Innocence reported the images to Spain’s National Police. Officers replied that Interpol had already identified the child as a Ukrainian girl. That identification, Mr Peribanez stresses, has never been independently verified.
Julian Peribanez is sceptical about Christian Brueckner as a suspect (Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
He said: “I do not claim for sure the girl is Madeleine. I am asking for it to be verified.” He emailed Operation Grange twice, citing the Spanish police report number, and received no reply. He does not question the officers’ professionalism, only their commitment to following this particular lead.
The third point is the silence itself. Nearly 20 years on, with official investigations scaled back and funding under constant review, Peribáñez argues that promising private avenues are being left to wither. He is urging anyone who lived or worked in the Algarve before 2007 and who may have information about Eastern European groups operating in the area at the time to come forward. Contact can be made through julian@guardianesinocencia.com.
Mr Peribanez first joined the case through the Spanish agency Metodo 3, hired by the McCanns after early Portuguese efforts stalled. The experience reshaped his career. He later founded Guardians of Innocence and has written on wider networks of child exploitation, including high-profile scandals.
He insists there is no proven link between Madeleine’s disappearance and figures such as Jeffrey Epstein, and he differentiates carefully between established facts and his own working hypotheses.
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The McCann family has never publicly endorsed the latest claims, and neither Scotland Yard nor German prosecutors have commented on Peribanez’s specific assertions.
Operation Grange continues on a reduced footing, while German authorities still regard Brückner as their main suspect despite the absence of charges.
For Peribanez the search is personal as well as professional. He has said in recent interviews: “As long as I have hope, I won’t stop looking.” Whether his identification of a trafficking network or the unverified photographs lead anywhere remains to be tested by police.
What is clear is that one of the original private investigators refuses to close the file, and is now appealing directly to the public for the single name that could reopen it.
