“AS LONG AS I HAVE HOPE, I WON’T STOP LOOKING” — INVESTIGATOR MAKES EMOTIONAL APPEAL NEARLY 20 YEARS AFTER MADELEINE McCANN VANISHED
Julian Peribañez, who once worked with the private investigation team hired by Madeleine’s parents, says he still does not know what happened to the missing little girl — but he refuses to give up searching.
Nearly 20 years after Madeleine McCann disappeared during a family holiday in Portugal, one investigator who spent years working on the case says he still has not given up hope of finding answers.
Julian Peribañez, a Spanish private investigator who joined the team hired by Kate and Gerry McCann in 2008, has made an emotional appeal for anyone with information to come forward.
In a recent interview, he admitted that he does not know whether Madeleine is still alive or what happened to her after she vanished.
“I don’t know if she’s alive or not, because hardly anyone on Earth does,” he said.
“But as long as I have hope, I won’t stop looking.”
His words offer no confirmed breakthrough in the investigation. Instead, they reveal the determination of a man who says Madeleine’s disappearance changed the direction of his life.
THE LITTLE GIRL WHO DISAPPEARED DURING A FAMILY HOLIDAY
Madeleine was just three years old when she disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, 2007.
Her parents had been dining with friends at a nearby restaurant while Madeleine and her younger twin siblings were sleeping inside the apartment.
When Kate McCann returned to check on the children, she discovered that Madeleine was missing.
An international search followed, attracting worldwide attention and becoming one of the most widely reported missing-child cases in modern history.
Despite years of investigations, searches and public appeals, Madeleine has never been found.
THE INVESTIGATOR WHO REFUSES TO GIVE UP
Peribañez joined the private investigation team working on behalf of Madeleine’s family the year after she disappeared.
The case became deeply personal for him, influencing his later work investigating child exploitation and efforts to protect vulnerable children.
He has since founded Guardianes de la Inocencia, an organisation focused on protecting children, and written about 𝘢bu𝘴e and exploitation.
Yet Madeleine’s disappearance remains an unresolved chapter in his life.
He continues to pursue his own lines of inquiry and is appealing to people in Portugal’s Algarve region who may remember individuals or events that could be relevant to the case.
“All I need is a name. Give me a name, and I’ll chase it wherever I have to,” he said.
A THEORY THAT HAS NOT BEEN CONFIRMED
During the interview, Peribañez also shared his personal belief that Madeleine may have been abducted by an organised Eastern European trafficking network operating in the Algarve.
He is urging anyone who encountered people fitting the profile he described to contact him.
However, this remains his own investigative theory. It has not been established as an official finding by police.
German authorities identified Christian Brückner as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance in 2020. He has not been charged in connection with her disappearance and denies involvement.
No publicly confirmed account has established what happened to Madeleine after she vanished.
NEARLY TWO DECADES WITHOUT ANSWERS
As the twentieth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance approaches in May 2027, her whereabouts remain unknown.
For Kate and Gerry McCann, the search for their daughter has meant nearly two decades of uncertainty.
For Peribañez, the passage of time has not ended the search.
His latest message is not a declaration that the mystery has been solved. It is a promise that he intends to keep looking while there is still hope.
Madeleine was only three years old when she disappeared.
Nearly two decades later, one question remains unanswered: what happened to her?
And for those who still hope to find the truth, the search is not over. 🤍
