Soil collected during the renewed search for Madeleine McCann is being tested to see if it matches up with dirt from a top suspect, sources say.

German detectives believe they can tie the dirt found in Christian B’s VW camper van 16 years ago to that found in Algarve, Portugal.

McCann was three years old when she vanished while her parents and siblings were holidaying in the seaside village of Praia da Luz in 2007.

But the German authorities last month launched a new search for the little girl with a focus on Christian, a German man who lived in Portugal on and off from 1995 to 2007.

He is currently serving time in a German prison for a separate offence, having a criminal record including convictions for the sexual abuse of children in the region from 2000 to 2017.

After three days of combing the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 30 miles from where Madeleine went missing, police collected soil samples from two-feet-deep boreholes made near a waterline.

To Christian, 46, this beauty spot was a ‘little paradise’, with sources close to the investigation claiming to prove he visited it in May 2007 is ‘pivotal’ to the case.

The two soil samples matching up would be Christian’s ‘final nail in the coffin’ after alleged photographs suggested he was in the area at the time.

The images ignited the search requested by German prosecutors in what is the first major search for Madeleine in years, the source added.

‘A positive match of the soil they already have from the vehicle with the earth they removed during the search last week will be another important piece of evidence against him,’ they said.

‘It will be a slight setback if the forensics people don’t get a match but at this stage, investigators remain hopeful.

‘The search that took place late last month would never have been requested and authorised if the motive for it hadn’t been well supported.’

Portuguese police said the search – which included sniffer dogs – ‘resulted in the collection of some material’.

Christian was made a formal suspect by Portuguese police in 2022 in McCann’s disappearance but had for years been on the force’s radars.

British police said they received a tip-off about him after making their first public appeal for new information about the toddler in 2017.

The prosecutor for the German city of Braunschweig, Christian Wolters, said the search last month came after his office received ‘certain tips’.

He told the German public broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) yesterday that what was found from the ‘partially successful’ search was ‘interesting’, the results expected in the coming weeks.

Depending on the outcome, he said, will decide what ‘next steps’ prosecutors should take.

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