Thousands of Portuguese telephone records have been seized by police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. (Daily Mail Thursday 20th December 2007)
Detectives are trawling through the paperwork looking for unusual patterns of calls around the time she vanished.
Head of the inquiry Paulo Rebelo ordered the check across Praia da Luz, Burgau and Lagos - a region which has a population of 27,000.
He has gone back to old-fashioned policing methods after forensic evidence failed to provide any breakthroughs.
The operation indicates the team believes a local accomplice may have been involved in aiding Madeleine's abduction.
Detectives have begun the process of contacting up to 1,000 locals whose records or mobile signals show they were in Praia da Luz on the night of May 3. Officers are particularly interested in the time between 9.30pm and 10pm, when they believe Madeleine disappeared.
One resident said two detectives visited her on Tuesday, armed with two sheets of paper containing hundreds of numbers. They asked her to confirm her mobile number and then asked her who she had called at 9.50pm on May 3.
