GERMAN cops are rumoured to be digging for a cellar built under an allotment once rented by Maddie suspect Christian Brueckner – days after they searched public gardens near his old flat.
The paedophile monster previously boasted to the owner of an allotment he rented in Braunschweig, northern Germany, that he wanted to put perspex glass over a hole in the ground at her site.
The woman sensationally claimed last month he wanted to build a “Fritzel cellar” to stash snatched children under her land.
Now detectives are excavating another site some 45 miles away in Seelze, Hannover, where Christian Brueckner also frequented a second allotment in the years after Maddie’s disappearance.
They have also searched public gardens some 1.7miles away opposite a block of flats where he lived.
One neighbour said: “There were two police tents on the street and a helicopter flying up above last week.
“Police were very busy in the gardens opposite, they seemed to be looking for something.
“They wouldn’t say what they were doing but it makes sense now knowing that he lived here and they are searching other sites he was involved with.
“Christian is remembered for selling weed when he lived here. The block where he lived always stunk of cannabis, he was the local dealer.”
A skip was seen being taken toward the site Credit: Reuters 
A digger at the allotment site in Hanover Credit: Paul Edwards – The Sun 
The allotments are near Christian B’s last known address in Hanover
The Sun is also reporting that detectives believe they have strong evidence that Madeleine is dead. Yet the search continues.
DETECTIVES say they have “strong evidence” Madeleine is dead after uncovering a trove of pictures and videos buried by suspect Christian Brueckner.
Some 8,000 pieces of potential evidence was dug up which had been buried at an abandoned German box factory owned by Christian Brueckner.
It is alleged at least some of this disturbing material includes videos and pictures of his suspected crimes – with the files found on hard drives and USB sticks in a plastic bag.
The material was buried alongside his dead dog at the dilapidated and rubbish filed site in Neuwegersleben.
The Daily Mail initially broke the story of Brueckner’s alleged cellar:
Christian Brueckner lived off-grid at the German allotment being dug up by investigators in the same year that Madeleine McCann vanished, a neighbour has claimed.
The sex offender lived at the vegetable garden with a shed and cellar, failed to register with local authorities and talked about planning his return to southern Europe, the neighbour says.
Wolfgang Kossack, 73, who owns the plot next to Brueckner’s former allotment, told MailOnline that the buildings on Brueckner’s plot of land were demolished in 2008.
Up to 100 investigators are today searching the allotment garden for a second day after removing slabs of building materials on Tuesday, when they descended on the plot with excavators and a sniffer dog.
Last month a former friend of Brueckner reportedly claimed the kidnap suspect told him he had a cellar he wanted to line with metal sheets ‘like Josef Fritzl’s’.
Brueckner – who is currently in jail in northern Germany – is suspected of killing Madeleine after she vanished from her Praia da Luz holiday apartment in May 2007, the same year that Brueckner lived at the allotment.
Mr Kossack said he only realised the link to Brueckner this week when police started digging up the allotment, saying: ‘I remembered his face from the pictures in the news. And I remember his van and his dogs. I had completely forgotten about him up until then.’
A map showing the location of Brueckner’s apartment block in Hannover and of the vegetable garden which is being searched in northern Germany
Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Kossack said: ‘Christian Brueckner had the garden next to mine. He arrived in 2007 and left within a year. He told me that he living off the grid, that he had not registered with the authorities – no one knew he was there.
‘He never did any gardening. He did not plant anything or try to grow anything. He just sat around drinking beer.
‘At the time there was a building on the garden. It was a small wooden structure with only one room to keep tools and other things but it had a kitchen.
‘The building was not really a house, you might call it a shed. But it had a cellar and underneath there would be foundations. This building was destroyed in 2008.’
The Sun also detailed the search itself.
Forensics officers and a search team clutching shovels, rakes and plastic evidence bags then moved in to sift through the dirt for clues.
Possible evidence was taken away as specially trained sniffer dogs concentrated on a tunnel at the site.
Search teams were seen arriving for a third day of searches at the allotment site, which has been fenced off.
Two small tents have been set up in a field opposite the main excavation site.
A fleet of police vehicles lined the side of the small country road as commuter traffic drove past.
Ground-penetrating radars scoured the decades-old tunnels, where prisoners were forced to labour in World War Two.
