Madeleine McCann Theory: Missing Girl Kept Alive By Child Traffickers

A Netflix documentary about the disappearance of missing Madeleine McCann claimed the girl, who was abducted when she was three years old, was taken by a trafficking gang and was alive. Madeleine went missing in 2007 after her parents left her and her 2-year-old twin siblings alone inside a vacation apartment rental in Portugal while they went out for dinner.

A top child protection cop insists the mystery behind the disappearance of Madeleine will soon be solved, the Sun reported.

“I absolutely believe that in my lifetime we will find out what has happened to Madeleine McCann," Jim Gamble, the top child protection cop in the U.K.’s first Maddie investigation said. “There’s huge hope to be had with the advances in technology. Year on year DNA is getting better. Year on year other techniques, including facial recognition, are getting better... And as we use that technology to revisit and review that which we captured in the past, there’s every likelihood that something we already know will slip into position.”

The documentary, which was due to release Friday, claimed Madeleine was likely kept alive by child traffickers because as a middle-class British girl, she would be more financially valuable.

“They usually go for lower-class kids from third world countries — that’s the main supplier of these gangs," Julian Peribanez, the private investigator hired by the McCann family said. “The value that Madeleine had was really high because if they took her it’s because they were going to get a lot of money.”

The theory that she was taken by child-abusers was briefly considered when Maddie disappeared from her family’s apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal, on the evening of May 3, 2007.

Madeleine's parents were investigated in the disappearance of their child, but they maintained their innocence. They were named as official suspects four months after her disappearance, but Portuguese police dropped the case in July 2008 due to lack of evidence. The Metropolitan Police inquiry into the disappearance — known as Operation Grange — was ongoing since 2011. There were concerns the search operation could end due to lack of funds, however, they continued receiving funding from the government for the search.

In an emotional BBC Radio 4 interview in 2018, Madeleine's father said he dreamt his daughter is still alive and believes they will one day be reunited.

“I just want to hug her, to hold her, to cry — a lot. Never a day goes by when I don’t think of Madeleine," he said.