The documentary does raise the possibility that Madeleine's disappearance was connected to a larger human trafficking scheme. In the documentary, private investigator Julian Peribanez speculates on the possibility that Madeleine was abducted and sold into trafficking — and he thinks she's still alive, if that's the case.
"The value that Madeleine had was really high . . . If they took her it's because they were going to get a lot of money," he explained. Why would Madeleine have been so valuable? As a white, middle-class, European girl of a very young age, she would have been "rarer" than, say, older children from poorer families who are statistically more likely to get caught up in trafficking as runaways or in similar situations.
A connected theory is that she was abducted specifically to be sold to a childless couple, as the Telegraph reported. This theory hinges on the fact that "suspicious characters" had been seen lurking around the resort in the days prior to Madeleine's disappearance, leading some to believe that she was scouted out and kidnapped because she was specifically chosen. In this scenario, too, Madeleine would most likely still be alive somewhere, living out her life somewhere without knowing the truth.