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Disappeared and Abducted Children and Young Adults => Madeleine McCann (3) disappeared from her parent's holiday apartment at Ocean Club, Praia da Luz, Portugal on 3 May 2007. No trace of her has ever been found. => The Private Investigators => Topic started by: Mr Moderator on December 21, 2013, 10:21:51 PM

Title: No 3 - The Search for Madeleine and Red Defence International (RDI)
Post by: Mr Moderator on December 21, 2013, 10:21:51 PM

The Search for Madeleine McCann and Red Defence International (RDI)

Red Defence International (RDI) was a British Company formed in 2005, it billed itself as 'an experienced provider of crisis prevention, management and expertise'. It claimed to have a presence in Washington DC and Virginia and representation in the Middle East, Africa and Central America.

The Company was headed by Kevin Halligen, a smooth-talking Irishman who claimed to have worked for covert British government intelligence agency GCHQ and Henri Exton, a former undercover police officer who worked on MI5 operations.

(http://i.imgur.com/H4lgJUT.jpg?1)

Irishman Kevin Halligen.  The man behind investigators Red Defence and Oakley International.

While Exton was the genuine article as an investigator, Halligen was a very different character. Born in Dublin in 1961, he has been described as a ‘Walter Mitty figure’. He used false names to collect prospective clients at airports in order to preserve secrecy, and he called himself ‘Kevin’ or ‘Richard’ or ‘Patrick’ at different times to describe himself to business contacts. There appears to be no reason for all this subterfuge except that he thought this was what agents did. A conspiracy theorist and lover of the secret world, he was obsessed by surveillance gadgets and even installed a covert camera to spy on his own employees.

He claimed to have worked for GCHQ, but in fact he was employed by the Atomic Energy Authority (AEA) as head of defence systems in the rather less glamorous field of new information technology, researching the use of ‘special batteries’. He told former colleagues and potential girlfriends that he used to work for MI5, MI6 and the CIA. He also claimed that he was nearly kidnapped by the IRA, was involved in the first Gulf War and had been a freefall parachutist.

After leaving the AEA, Halligen set up Red Defence International Ltd as an international security and political risk company, advising clients on the risks involved in investing and doing business in unstable, war-torn and corrupt countries. He worked closely with political risk companies and was a persuasive advocate of IT security. In 2006, he struck gold when hired by Trafigura, the Dutch commodities trading company. Executives were imprisoned in the Ivory Coast after toxic waste was dumped in landfills near its biggest city Abidjan. Trafigura was blamed and hired Red Defence International at vast expense to help with the negotiations to release its executives. A Falcon business jet was rented for several months during the operation and it was Halligen's first taste of the good life. The case only ended when Trafigura paid $197 million to the government of the Ivory Coast to secure the release of the prisoners.

(http://i.imgur.com/PUip3OH.jpg?1)

Scientists test for toxic waste on the Ivory Coast.

Halligen made a fortune from Trafigura and was suddenly flying everywhere first-class, staying at the Lansborough and Stafford hotels in London and The Willard hotel in Washington DC for months at a time.

Later, Trafigura engaged the country’s leading libel lawyers, Carter-Ruck, in an attempt to defend its reputation. This move backfired spectacularly when, in October 2009, Carter-Ruck threatened ‘The Guardian’ newspaper with injunction proceedings if it reported on a Parliamentary Question about Trafigura asked by Paul Farrelly M.P.  As a result, Members of Parliament and the media rounded on Carter-Ruck, accusing them of undermining Parliamentary democracy by attempting to ban the reporting of Parliamentary proceedings.
No-one could recall such a blatant attempt to interfere with the rights of a British Parliament. Despite Carter-Ruck’s best efforts to stop the reporting of Paul Farrelly’s question - and of course the answer to it - ‘The Guardian’ and then all the other media not only reported the Parliamentary Question but also published a great deal of other highly damaging information about Trafigura which hugely damaged the company’s reputation. It was a spectacular ‘own goal’ by Carter-Ruck and their clients.

At the very same time as Carter-Ruck were representing Trafigura, Carter-Ruck were also engaged in an attempt to silence Tony Bennett and Debbie Butler of The Madeleine Foundation, by threatening them with libel proceedings over the content of the Madeleine Foundation website and the publication and distribution of their booklet: “What Really Happened to Madeleine McCann?"

In 2007, after Madeleine McCann's disappearance, Halligen set up Oakley International Group (http://www.miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=2809.msg77568#msg77568) and registered at the offices of the prestigious law firm Patton Boggs, in Washington DC, as an international security company. He was now strutting the stage as a self-proclaimed international spy expert and joined the Special Forces Club in Knightsbridge, where he met Exton.

The Company website www.reddefence.com was registered by Tim Craig-Harvey. (http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Tim-Craig-Harvey/1609857758)  Read more (http://whereishalligen.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/tim-craig-harvey.html)

However, in August 2008, its accounts were two months overdue and it faced being fined by HM Revenue & Customs.

www.companycheck.co.uk/company/05396823u

Title: Re: No 3 - The Search for Madeleine and Red Defence International (RDI)
Post by: Mr Moderator on February 06, 2014, 02:48:11 PM

Mark Hollingsworth Investigates The McCann Files
25 September 2009

Disillusioned with the Portuguese police, Gerry and Kate McCann turned to private detectives to find their missing daughter. Instead the efforts of the private eyes served only to scare off witnesses, waste funds and raise false hopes. Mark Hollingsworth investigates the investigators.

It was billed as a ‘significant development’ in the exhaustive search for Madeleine McCann. At a recent dramatic press conference in London, the lead private investigator David Edgar, a retired Cheshire detective inspector, brandished an E-FIT image of an Australian woman, described her as ‘a bit of a Victoria Beckham lookalike’, and appealed for help in tracing her. The woman was seen ‘looking agitated’ outside a restaurant in Barcelona three days after Madeleine’s disappearance. ‘It is a strong lead’, said Edgar, wearing a pin-stripe suit in front of a bank of cameras and microphones. ‘Madeleine could have been in Barcelona by that point. The fact the conversation took place near the marina could be significant.’

But within days reporters discovered that the private detectives had failed to make the most basic enquiries before announcing their potential breakthrough. Members of Edgar’s team who visited Barcelona had failed to speak to anyone working at the restaurant near where the agitated woman was seen that night, neglected to ask if the mystery woman had been filmed on CCTV cameras and knew nothing about the arrival of an Australian luxury yacht just after Madeleine vanished.

The apparent flaws in this latest development were another salutary lesson for Kate and Gerry McCann, who have relied on private investigators after the Portuguese police spent more time falsely suspecting the parents than searching for their daughter. For their relations with private detectives have been frustrating, unhappy and controversial ever since their daughter’s disappearance in May 2007.

The search has been overseen by the millionaire business Brian Kennedy, 49, who set up Madeleine’s Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned, which aimed ‘to procure that Madeleine’s abduction is thoroughly investigated’. A straight-talking, tough, burly self-made entrepreneur and rugby fanatic, he grew up in a council flat near Tynecastle in Scotland and was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness. He started his working life as a window cleaner and by 2007 had acquired a £350 million fortune from double-glazing and home-improvement ventures. Kennedy was outraged by the police insinuations against the McCanns and, though a stranger, worked tirelessly on their behalf. ‘His motivation was sincere,’ said someone who worked closely with him. ‘He was appalled by the Portuguese police, but he also had visions of flying in by helicopter to rescue Madeleine.’

Kennedy commissioned private detectives to conduct an investigation parallel to the one run by the Portuguese police. But his choice showed how dangerous it is when powerful and wealthy businessmen try to play detective. In September 2007, he hired Metodo 3, an agency based in Barcelona, on a six-month contract and paid it an estimated £50,000 a month. Metodo 3 was hired because of Spain’s ‘language and cultural connection’ with Portugal. ‘If we’d had big-booted Brits or, heaven forbid, Americans, we would have had doors slammed in our faces’ said Clarence Mitchell, spokesperson for the McCann’s at the time. ‘And it’s quite likely that we could have been charged with hindering the investigation as technically it’s illegal in Portugal to undertake a secondary investigation.

The agency had 35 investigators working on the case in Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco. A hotline was set up for the public to report sightings and suspicions, and the search focussed on Morocco. But the investigation was dogged by over-confidence and braggadocio. ‘We know who took Madeleine and hope she will be home by Christmas,’ boasted Metodo 3’s flamboyant boss Francisco Marco. But no Madeleine materialised and their contract was not renewed.

Until now, few details have emerged about the private investigation during those crucial early months, but an investigation by ES shows that key mistakes were made, which in turn made later enquiries far more challenging.

ES has spoken to several sources close to the private investigations that took place in the first year and discovered that:

* The involvement of Brian Kennedy and his son Patrick in the operation was counter-productive, notably when they were questioned by the local police for acting suspiciously while attempting a 24-hour ‘stake out’.

* The relationship between Metodo 3 and the Portuguese police had completely broken down.

* Key witnesses were questioned far too aggressively, so much so that some of them later refused to talk to the police.

* Many of the investigators had little experience of the required painstaking forensic detective work.

By April 2008, nearing the first anniversary of the disappearance, Kennedy and the McCanns were desperate. And so when Henri Exton, a former undercover police officer who worked on MI5 operations, and Kevin Halligen, a smooth-talking Irishman who claimed to have worked for covert British government intelligence agency GCHQ, walked through the door, their timing was perfect. Their sales pitch was classic James Bond spook-talk: everything had to be ‘top secret’ and ‘on a need to know basis’. The operation would involve 24-hour alert systems, undercover units, satellite imagery and round-the-clock surveillance teams that would fly in at short notice. This sounded very exciting but, as one source close to the investigation told ES, it was also very expensive and ultimately unsuccessful. ‘The real job at hand was old-fashioned, tedious, forensic police work rather than these boy’s own, glory boy antic,’ he said.

But Kennedy was impressed by the license-to-spy presentation and Exton and Halligen were hire for a fee of £100,000 per month plus expenses. Ostensibly, the contract was with Halligen’s UK security company, Red Defence International Ltd, and an office was set up in Jermyn Street, in St James’s. Only a tiny group of employees did the painstaking investigative work of dealing with thousands of emails and phone calls. Instead, resources were channelled into undercover operations in p.a.e.dophile rings and among gypsies throughout Europe, encouraged by Kennedy. A five-man surveillance team was dispatched in Portugal, overseen by the experienced Exton, for six weeks.

Title: Re: No 3 - The Search for Madeleine and Red Defence International (RDI)
Post by: Mr Moderator on February 06, 2014, 03:29:07 PM

Born in Belgium in 1951, Exton had been a highly effective undercover officer for the Manchester police. A maverick and dynamic figure, he successfully infiltrated gangs of football hooligans in the 1980’s. While not popular among his colleagues, in 1991 he was seconded to work on MI5 undercover operations against drug dealers, gangsters and terrorists, and was later awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for ‘outstanding bravery’. By all accounts, the charismatic Exton was a dedicated officer. But in November 2002, the stress appeared to have overcome his judgement when he was arrested for shoplifting.

While working on an MI5 surveillance, Exton was caught leaving a tax-free shopping area at Manchester airport with a bottle of perfume he had not paid for. The police were called and he was given the option of the offence being dealt with under caution or to face prosecution. He chose a police caution and so in effect admitted his guilt. Exton was sacked, but was furious about the way he had been treated and threatened to sue MI5. He later set up his own consulting company and moved to Bury in Lancashire.

While Exton, however flawed, was the genuine article as an investigator, Halligen was a very different character. Born in Dublin in 1961, he has been described as a ‘Walter Mitty figure’. He used false names to collect prospective clients at airports in order to preserve secrecy, and he called himself ‘Kevin’ or ‘Richard’ or ‘Patrick’ at different times to describe himself to business contacts. There appears to be no reason for all this subterfuge except that he thought this was what agents did. A conspiracy theorist and lover of the secret world, he is obsessed by surveillance gadgets and even installed a covert camera to spy on his own employees. He claimed to have worked for GCHQ, but in fact he was employed by the Atomic Energy Authority (AEA) as head of defence systems in the rather less glamorous field of new information technology, researching the use of ‘special batteries’. He told former colleagues and potential girlfriends that he used to work for MI5, MI6 and the CIA. He also claimed that he was nearly kidnapped by the IRA, was involved in the first Gulf War and had been a freefall parachutist.

Very little of this is true. What is true is that Halligen has a degree in electronics, worked on the fringes of the intelligence community while at AEA and does understand government communications. He could also be an astonishingly persuasive, engaging and charming individual. Strikingly self-confident and articulate, he could be generous and clubbable. ‘He was very good company but only when it suited him’ says one friend. He kept people in compartments.’

After leaving the AEA, Halligen set up Red Defence International Ltd as an international security and political risk company, advising clients on the risks involved in investing and doing business in unstable, war-torn and corrupt countries. He worked closely with political risk companies and was a persuasive advocate of IT security. In 2006, he struck gold when hired by Trafigura, the Dutch commodities trading company. Executives were imprisoned in the Ivory Coast after toxic waste was dumped in landfills near its biggest city Abidjan. Trafigura was blamed and hired Red Defence International at vast expense to help with the negotiations to release its executives. A Falcon business jet was rented for several months during the operation and it was Halligen’s first taste of the good life. The case only ended when Trafigura paid $197 million to the government of the Ivory Coast to secure the release of the prisoners.

Halligen made a fortune from Trafigura and was suddenly flying everywhere first-class, staying at the Lansborough and Stafford hotels in London and The Willard hotel in Washington DC for months at a time. In 2007 he set up Oakley International Group and registered at the offices of the prestigious law firm Patton Boggs, in Washington DC, as an international security company. He was now strutting the stage as a self-proclaimed international spy expert and joined the Special Forces Club in Knightsbridge, where he met Exton.

During the Madeleine investigation, Halligen spent vast amounts of time in the HeyJo bar in the basement of the Abracadabra Club near his Jermyn Street office. Armed with a clutch of unregistered mobile phones and a Blackberry, the bar was in effect his office. ‘He was there virtually the whole day,’ a former colleague told ES. ‘He had an amazing tolerance for alcohol and a prodigious memory and so occasionally he would have amazing bursts of intelligence, lucidity and insights. They were very rare but they did happen.’

When not imbibing in St James’s, Halligen was in the United States, trying to drum up investors for Oakley International. On 15 August 2008, at the height of the McCann investigation crisis, he persuaded Andre Hollis, a former US Drug enforcement agency official, to write out an $80,000 cheque to Oakley in return for a ten per cent share-holding. The money was then transferred into the private accounts of Halligen and his girlfriend Shirin Trachiotis to finance a holiday in Italy, according to Hollis. In a $6 million lawsuit filed in Fairfax County, Virginia, Hollis alleges that Halligen ‘received monies for Oakley’s services rendered and deposited the same into his personal accounts’ and ‘repeatedly and systematically depleted funds from Oakley’s bank accounts for inappropriate personal expenses’.

Hollis was not the only victim. Mark Aspinall, a respected lawyer who worked closely with Halligen, invested £500,000 in Oakley and lost the lot. Earlier this year he filed a lawsuit in Washington DC against Halligen claiming $1.4 million in damages. The finances of Oakley International are in chaos and numerous employees, specialist consultants and contractors have not been paid. Some of them now face financial ruin.

Meanwhile, Exton was running the surveillance teams in Portugal and often paying his operatives upfront, so would occasionally be out-of-pocket because Halligen had not transferred funds. Exton genuinely believed that progress was being made and substantial and credible reports on child trafficking were submitted. But by mid-August 2008, Kennedy and Gerry McCann were increasingly concerned by an absence of details of how the money was being spent. At one meeting, Halligen was asked how many men constituted a surveillance team and he produced a piece of paper on which he wrote ‘between one and ten’. But he then refused to say how many were working and how much they were being paid.

While Kennedy and Gerry McCann accepted that the mission was extremely difficult and some secrecy was necessary, Halligen was charging very high rates and expenses. And eyebrows were raised when all the money was paid to Oakley International, solely owned and managed by Halligen. One invoice, seen by ES, shows that for ‘accrued expenses to May 5, 2008’ (just one month into the contract), Oakley charged $74,155. The ‘point of contact’ was Halligen who provided a UK mobile telephone number.

While Kennedy was ready to accept Halligen at face value, Gerry McCann  sharp, focused and intelligent  was more sceptical. The contract with Oakley International and Halligen was terminated by the end of September 2008, after £500,000-plus expenses had been spent.

For the McCanns it was a bitter experience, Exton has returned to Cheshire and, like so many people, is owed money by Halligen. As for Halligen, he has gone into hiding, leaving a trail of debt and numerous former business associates and creditors looking for him. He was last seen in January of this year in Rome, drinking and spending prodigiously at the Hilton Cavalieri and Excelsior hotels. He is now believed by private investigators, who have been searching for him to serve papers on behalf of creditors, to be in the UK and watching his back. Meanwhile, in the eye of the storm, the McCanns continue the search for their lost daughter.

Title: Re: No 3 - The Search for Madeleine and Red Defence International (RDI)
Post by: Mr Moderator on February 06, 2014, 03:37:58 PM

One of the most baffling decisions of all was the McCann Team’s decision to hire Kevin Halligen, part of a two-man team who set up an intelligence agency called Red Defence International. The other was Henri Exton. When news leaked out about Halligen’s involvement, the McCann Team concealed his identity and described the Comany as ‘the big boys of international detective work’. It was a calculated lie. Oakley had been formed after Madeleine McCann was reported missing - and consisted just of these two men. Neither man had any experience of looking for missing children.

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LX7PpM4fs4s/U[Name removed]Ghh96z2I/AAAAAAAAADU/klBodT_lA24/s1600/halligan320.jpg)

Kevin Halligen

Halligen and Exton were reported to have charged the McCann Team a fee of £100,000 a month plus expenses. In the first month of the contract, he claimed over £50,000 in expenses, on top of his fee.  He was paid large sums of money upfront, despite him producing nothing of value. Hollingsworth wrote that: “During the Madeleine investigation, Halligen spent vast amounts of time in the HeyJo bar in the basement of the Abracadabra Club near his Jermyn Street office...the bar was in effect his office”. A former colleague said: “He was there virtually the whole day”. During the time the McCanns employed Halligen, they were advertising ‘an investigation hotline’ for members of the public to ring with any information. Halligen arranged for a company, iJet, based in West Virginia, U.S., to handle the calls. However, the Director of iJet later complained that neither the McCann Team nor Kevin Halligen had followed up any calls to the hotline, as highlighted in this Daily Mail article.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231757/Madeleine-McCann-investigator-didnt-listen-ANY-tip-offs-given-hotline--squandered-500-000.html  The Mail article  rightly condemned Halligen for having ‘squandered £500,000’. Yet the McCanns have never sued Halligen.

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w_FAg_afUMg/U[Name removed]H0zgeX_I/AAAAAAAAADo/Uhx1WGRnUHY/s1600/Henri+Exton.jpg)

Henri Exton

Henri Exton, former business partner of Kevin Halligen, is a former Greater Manchester Police undercover officer. From 1991, he worked for MI5. In 2002, he was arrested for shoplifting. Whilst working on an MI5 surveillance operation, Exton was caught leaving a tax-free shopping area at Manchester airport with an expensive item he hadn’t paid for. The police were called. He was given the option of the offence being dealt with under caution, or face prosecution. He chose a police caution, thereby admitting his guilt. He was sacked by MI5. Furious at the decision to dismiss him, Exton then threatened to sue MI5.

Andrew Hollis, a former US Drug enforcement agency official, paid £55,000 to Halligen for a 10% shareholding in Oakley International. But Halligen transferred the money into his private bank account, using it to pay for him and his girlfriend Shirin Trachiotis to have a lavish holiday in Italy. Hollingsworth wrote that: “In a £4 million lawsuit filed in Fairfax County, Virginia, Hollis alleged that Halligen ‘received monies for Oakley’s services rendered and deposited this into his personal accounts’ and ‘systematically depleted funds from Oakley’s bank accounts for inappropriate personal expenses’.”  Another victim was Mark Aspinall, a lawyer who worked closely with Halligen, who invested £500,000 in Oakley and lost the lot. Aspinall filed a lawsuit in Washington DC against Halligen, claiming £1 million in damages.   

Title: Re: No 3 - The Search for Madeleine and Red Defence International (RDI)
Post by: Mr Moderator on February 07, 2014, 01:46:09 PM

In March 2008,  Red Defence International morphed into Oakley International, (http://www.miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=2809.msg77568#msg77568) another Company set up, wholly owned and controlled by Kevin Halligen to pursue the search for Madeleine.


This is a new thread and completes the first four in the series of six.