Police who have been working the 2007 disappearance of then-3-year-old Madeleine McCann are said to be closer to solving the case, according to Metro.

Reportedly, officers have closed in on a man who was in the Algarve when the British child went missing in 2007. Local reports state that British and Portuguese police are getting ready to investigate a "new clue and suspect."

McCann went missing on May 3, 2007, while her parents, Kate and Gerry, were eating dinner nearby with friends while on vacation in Portugal. As reported, it is believed that McCann had been asleep in her room with her two other siblings at the time that an intruder entered and abducted her.

This new development arose after a mystery tip was given to detectives. It is said that officers have their sights set on an alleged pedophile who was in the same vicinity in Portugal in 2007 and have received extra resources to look at the new findings.

The suspect is reportedly a 48-year-old German man named Martin Ney, who is serving a life sentence for the abductions and murders of three children. Allegedly, he had been in Portugal working for an evangelical church around the time of McCann's disappearance. He is also suspected to be behind two additional murders in 1998 and 2004. As noted by The Sun, Ney was found guilty in 2012 for the three murders.

The timings of his crimes seem to coincide with the year of the McCann case as Ney is said to have murdered a child every three years: 1992, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2007, if he is in fact behind Madeleine's disappearance.

According to The Mirror, Scotland Yard would only state that the investigation is "ongoing."

Photo: Reuters