As convicted paedophile Christian B was declared an official suspect in Portugal, German prosecutors think he kidnapped Madeleine McCann.

There is now possibly critical evidence that might solve the world’s most famous missing child case, following a protracted inquiry by officials in Portugal, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Cops investigating the 15-year case are now claimed to be more hopeful after local officials in Portugal told Christian B that he was now a ‘arguido,’ or formal suspect.

According to Jim Gamble, he might stand trial as a result of “very compelling” new evidence from the tot’s 2007 disappearance.

The former Chief Met Police Officer recognised the “false storms” surrounding the Maddie case, but insisted that this is “not just another case taken from the pile.”

Christian B was “unmoved” by the statement, according to a source close to the inquiry, and continued to deny having “anything to do with Maddie’s disappearance.”

The new Portuguese probes follow the Met’s £12 million Operation Grange inquiry, which found no answers.

The couple is claimed to still be hopeful that their daughter, who would be 18 at the time, is still alive.

However, after investigating Christian B’s past ties to the Algarve, German prosecutors are certain she is dead.

He is currently serving time in a German prison for rapping a pensioner on the Portuguese sunshine coast in 2005, as well as being suspected of a number of other crimes.

Apart from saying he was not engaged in the McCann case, he has refused to help with authorities.

Prosecutors are confronted with a sequence of potential indications that link the German to the tot’s disappearance as they seek for the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

CRIMES IN THE AREA

According to a German prosecutor, Christian B is being investigated for at least five previous sex offences.

Hans Christian Wolters, a convicted paedophile, has disclosed that he is being investigated in Belgium for an attack on a 10-year-old child as well as the death of a 16-year-old female.

Wolters said in a book published last year that German detectives felt “there is solid cause” to accuse the paedo of a sex crime on a 10-year-old child.

He said the incident, which featured a nude male, occurred six miles from where Madeleine vanished a month later in Praia da Luz.

Wolters also stated that officials in Belgium are investigating the 44-year-old for the 1996 murder of Carola Titze, a 16-year-old girl in De Hana.

The rape suspect is also linked to the 2004 rape of a 20-year-old Irish lady in Praia de Rocha, Portugal.

Christian B is being probed, according to Wolters, for an incident at a children’s playground in Messines, which is barely 40 kilometres from Praia da Luz.

He also stated that German authorities are investigating if the suspect is linked to the 2015 disappearance of “German Maddie,” Inga Gehricke, who was five years old at the time.