MADELEINE McCann cops have been spotted carrying a number of bags away from a search area.
German and Portuguese cops investigating Christian B yesterday began to search the desolate site 45 minutes from Praia da Luz where Maddie vanished in 2007.
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German investigators who suspect Christian B are believed to have requested the search after discovering new leads.
Video taken this afternoon showed officers digging at the search site with shovels.
Excavations began at around 11am local time, and were being carried out at two different spots.
And a number of bags were taken away from the search area this afternoon, according to the BBC.
The spot is around 30 miles from the Ocean Club apartment where the three-year-old disappeared from while on holiday with her parents Kate and Gerry.
Arade Dam can only be accessed by a dirt road and has been linked to the Maddie case before and was searched in 2008.
It was the location of a sighting days after she vanished with a woman handing a child matching her description to a mystery man.
The evidence sparking the renewed search remains unknown – but sources said Christian B used to call the dam his “little paradise”.
He was reportedly “seen there often” and would sometimes spend the night in the barren area near an derelict hilltop diner.
And the reservoir is located in-between where he would park his grotty camper van in Praia da Luz and a villa in which he would stay in Foral.
German police insist Christian B is the man they believe took Maddie – but three years after announcing him as a suspect, they have yet to bring charges.
The 2008 search of the dam turned up a 17ft length of cord, strips of tape, and small bones – but none of this has ever been linked definitively to the case.
Portuguese broadcaster SIC reported German police sought permission to search the dam in an official judicial request to Portugal after concluding it was an “area of interest.”
It said: “Investigators know suspect Christian B used to come to this dam regularly.
“He would call it his little paradise and would often spend the night here. He was seen here often.
“The German authorities considered this reservoir to be an area of interest and ended up sending an International letter of request or letter rogatory.”
The reservoir was searched twice in February and March 2008 by divers hired by a Portuguese lawyer.
Marcos Aragao Correia organised the privately-funded operation after claimed he received an “underworld” tip.
He claimed he had been tipped off by underworld contacts that Madeleine had been murdered and her body thrown into the reservoir within 48 hours of her disappearance.
Madeleine’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann had previously dismissed Mr Correia as a self-publicist and said there was no evidence suggesting any link between their daughter and the reservoir.
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