It'll be easier if I reproduce it here - coming in two parts:
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‘THE SMOKESCREEN’ by Julian Peribanez and Antonio Tamarit
(August 2014, ISBN 978-84-941649-8-9)
CHAPTER 13: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ‘LOS CAGOTS’:
OUR WORK FOR METODO 3
Translation commissioned by the Madeleine Foundation, February 2016
The first part of this chapter is written by Antonio Tamarit; the second part by Julian Peribanez
Antonio Tamarit:
Our involvement in the case of a little girl called Madeleine McCann began during October 2007 in the city of Tangiers, Morocco, where I was on location for business reasons. It is a place with which I am well acquainted. Performing work such as mine at that location is no easy task.
Whilst I was there, Francisco Marco rang me from Barcelona, instructing me to establish contact in Tangiers Airport with some people from Control Risks, London, who wanted to speak to me about a little English girl who had disappeared in Portugal, and to hear what they had to say.
I met Brian Kennedy at the airport, accompanied by his son Patrick. The former was not connected to Control Risks, London, but was instead a patron who was helping the little girl’s parents to discover her whereabouts.
Our conversation focused on the common elements of the youngster’s disappearance. I made a few general comments on the basis of what I had read in the press (by this point in time, the only scenario I could envisage was finding a body, although I did not say that), and the conclusion that I drew from this first chat was that my conversation partners were very religious, as I myself am.
They were both convinced that the little girl was alive and that someone had abducted her. We got on well together. All three of us are keen on rugby and Brian Kennedy even has his own team (yes, that’s what he told us, that he had his own team). I commented that a complex case such as this requires in-depth research in order to be able to analyse all aspects.
We agreed to meet again in Manchester, Brian having already taken it as agreed that we would be contracted. When I enquired about their flight number for their return journey to England, they pointed to a private jet standing on the runway. I jovially commented that they don’t have a hard life, after which we said goodbye.
I subsequently rang Francisco Marco in Barcelona to inform him of our agreement and I suggested that he refrain from involving the press, as was his usual practice, and that instead we should simply get on with our work quietly, so that he could enjoy his moment of glory when we actually made a discovery.
As the whole world is now aware, there has never been a single moment of glory in the Madeleine McCann case; however, it has occupied many hours of time on the television and radio as the centre of attention, packed with lies, and hundreds of pages in daily newspapers, magazines and on websites, containing many untruths.
For the above reasons, my relationship (and likewise that of the other serious employees of the company) with Marco was seriously damaged.
From that moment on, which took place as I was at Tangiers Airport, I was relegated to the sidelines. Marita Fernández and José Luis Marco Llavina travelled to Manchester; these were Francisco Marco’s mother, who had not carried out any investigative work for many years, and her nephew, the company’s accountant. This was all symptomatic of the plans they were setting up at poor Madeleine’s expense.
The aunt and nephew team returned from Manchester in heroic style. They made a big point of emphasising that where this operation was concerned they were not motivated by money; however, in reality they ended up making a fortune by means of deception and dishonest trickery.
I was sent to Portugal on two occasions, just to make up the numbers, because in theory a whole army of Método 3 detectives were supposed to be working in Portugal. The reality of the situation was very different. Nobody from Método 3 was actually working there except Julián Peribañez, who was burning the midnight oil in an attempt to solve the case, and Elisenda Villena, for several months.
They sent me to Marrakech because, according to what I was told, there was a witness there. The witness turned out to be a French woman who assured me that the missing girl was in the Rif Mountains. When I asked her how she knew that - and whether she had seen her - she replied that she knew two clairvoyants, one in France and one in Morocco, and that both had informed her that Madeleine was in the Rif Mountains.
As the witness was unable to provide any further details, and just in case the clairvoyants’ predictions came up with any results, I proceeded to scour the country from top to bottom in my capacity as a member of the Método 3 army of investigators deployed to Morocco to solve the Madeleine case, travelling to Tangiers, Casablanca, Rabat, Agadir, Fez, Uarzazat, Uchda, Nador and any other places you may care to add. Needless to say, the little girl failed to appear.
After I had left Método 3, I began to realise to what extent the company was swindling the fund which had been set up and which was supported by hundreds of unsuspecting people whose sole objective was to find Madeleine. Nothing special, just inflated expenses, invented items and false invoices, etc. Who were the beneficiaries of this dishonesty?
Needless to say, the usual suspects: Francisco Marco, Marita Fernández and his cousin José Luis Marco Llavina.
Julian Peribanez:
And there is more besides that about Portugal, relating to frauds, the hotline and Brian Kennedy’s extraordinary reaction when we explained to him that they had been defrauded.
The Madeleine case was yet another outrage bearing the unmistakable hallmark of Método 3. Now it’s my turn to tell you about it. Método 3 became involved in the search for Madeleine McCann in October 2007.
Although there had been some talk of my accompanying Marita Fernández to the interview, in the end Marita went with Jose Luis Marco Llavina to meet Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann. I have no idea why, but the interview between the Método 3 representatives and Madeleine’s parents was recorded, which was not normal practice. I had an opportunity to listen to the recording. From that point on, Madeleine’s parents were relegated to the background and conversations were led directly by Brian Kennedy.
It was decided that the search for Madeleine was to take place in two countries: Portugal and Morocco (yes, Portugal and Morocco). My reason for emphasising that is because you may have read that the search took place in other places; however, that was a complete fabrication.
Antonio Tamarit trudged all over Morocco during a search the nature of which was both bizarre and insane. Where Portugal was concerned, Elisenda Villena and I were responsible for making the appropriate enquiries at the outset; however, after several months I found myself carrying out this task practically single handed.
In terms of the investigation, which lasted approximately eight months, we only received very sporadic assistance from Antonio Tamarit and Gerard Acereda. Indeed, their back-up was so sporadic that this only took place on a couple of occasions. Francisco Marco had tasked the latter of the two with locating a suspect who did not even exist. The purpose of Antonio Tamarit and Gerard Acereda’s visit to Portugal was to hide from Brian Kennedy (who had meanwhile suddenly left the United Kingdom and relocated to Praia de Luz in order to check first-hand on the progress of the search and rescue operations) the ‘empty shell’ nature of the supposed ‘twenty-man team’ from Método 3 which Francisco Marco had stated were dedicated to the search for the little girl in that area.
I wish to emphasise here again how shocking this was, so that it will not be overlooked: Francisco Marco, whenever asked, always replied that Método 3 had deployed ‘twenty men’ to investigate Madeleine’s disappearance! That was yet another lie.
This was the tactic used by Francisco Marco to inflate Método 3’s invoices to the client and it also gave him an opportunity to brag to the numerous journalists who were keen to report on the Madeleine case, as he was their point of reference.
I began in Portugal by following up various leads and then, by virtue of my good knowledge of English, I attended the offices of the Latium group in Wilmslow, Cheshire, in England where I met its owner, Brian Kennedy, lawyer Edward Smethurst, Madeleine’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann and cousins Francisco Marco and José Luis Marco in their capacity as the representatives, at the highest possible level, of Método 3.
The meeting, which had been arranged in order to outline the strategic plan and the investigative lines being pursued to locate the little girl, was also attended by another lawyer who was a former police officer, whose name I cannot recall. During the meeting, at the point when Francisco Marco addressed me. saying, “Stand up and talk, Julián, that is the only reason for your attendance here,” I realised that I had been sent to Wilmslow simply in order to deflect attention away from the fact that Francisco Marco’s English skills left a lot to be desired, which meant that he was incapable of describing in an intelligible manner the actions being taken to find the missing girl.
The presentation was laboured but it went reasonably well. There were some difficult moments when we had to take breaks. One such example was when the possibility was raised that Madeleine could have been abducted by a paedophile network. The parents remained stoical when this scenario was considered, although they were unable to stop their eyes from filling with tears. We had to stop at that point because their heartbreak was upsetting us all.
After the meeting had ended, the participants all went to Brian Kennedy’s home for supper. There, I was struck by how both our host and Madeleine’s parents were lovely people, and I was able to deduce, without any reservations whatsoever, that as far as that operation was concerned Francisco Marco had no particular interest in finding Madeleine. I made that deduction when during an aside, he asked me, “Do you realise how much an advertising campaign like this for Método 3 would cost me?”
Before I had a chance to reply, he answered his own question, “At least two million Eeros!” An advertising campaign costing him next to nothing, which was barely the cost of setting up the Madeleine McCann telephone line - the famous hotline no. 902 300 213 - the purpose of which was for people to ring in with information leading us to the little girl’s whereabouts.
Headlines in the media stated that a mechanism had been set up whereby operators would answer calls in Spanish, English, French, Italian, Arabic and Portuguese. However, this consisted in reality of a switchboard which redirected calls to our office, where Método 3’s employees, including myself, answered them. Before going on to describe the nature of the calls we received, I should mention that our understanding of English, French, Italian, Arabic and Portuguese certainly left room for improvement. In any event, the linguistic element was of no consequence, given that no relevant information was lost.
Fortune tellers (Spanish playing card and Tarot readers), necromancers, palmists, individuals who had had dreams but did not know what they were about, followed by others who offered interpretations of those dreams. In short, pure esotericism and complete time-wasting, all of which was the result of Francisco Marco’s bright and unique ideas about how to find little Madeleine.
After that, the genie having by now run out of ideas, he returned to his lamp, not without failing, however, to make frequent appearances in the media circus, where both he and his mother shone like bright lights. They were the king and queen of the trapeze.
The daily newspaper El Mundo on 25th November 2007 quoted Francisco, who was overwhelmed by his stardom, as saying, “The pressure is immense. I have a waiting list for 60 interviews with media from all over the world - and in the mornings, when I go to take my breakfast in the bar, I also come up against some English reporter or other who wants me to divulge information.”
Then, Marita Fernández had the absolute audacity to state that “half a dozen translators are responsible for answering calls in their own language, whether French, English, Portuguese, Arabic, etc. … Each conversation is recorded in a file and every piece of information is cross-checked with the others.”
When the journalist asked whether they were doing all this work for financial money reasons, the reply was: “We’re talking about five-figure sums and no more, and almost the whole of that amount is to cover the travel expenses to the countries where we have been working. The 20-strong team who are working exclusively on this case are all on our payroll, and our fees are practically symbolic. Madeleine is our only client.”
Both mother and son were trained in how to answer questions of this sort. On the back page of La Vanguardia dated 1st November 2007, at the time when rumours were circulating about whether Madeleine’s disappearance was simply a money-making hoax, the journalist Victor M. Amela asked Marco what was the basis of his belief. The latter replied, “Our experts spent ten hours interviewing the McCanns, which was sufficient time for them to ascertain whether they were deceiving us. My specialists have assured me that they are not hiding anything at all, and that is why we have decided to help them.”
He omitted to tell the journalist that his specialists were his mother and his cousin; he must have thought there was no need to mention this. Alternatively, he may have thought that the journalist had realised that his cousin was the chief financial officer (meaning the accountant) of Método 3 and that his mother was just a woman who didn’t even hold a driving licence and had been a secretary at a detective agency and who was involved in sales for the agency and not investigative work.
When asked what amount of money was being charged for the search for Madeleine, Francisco Marco replied, “Expenses plus a figure which is symbolic rather than high.” In answer to a question about how many cases of missing persons they investigated each year, he replied insistently, “We specialise in business fraud but we also locate approximately 300 persons per year.”
And now here is my attempt at solving a ‘rule of three’. If Francisco Marco’s agency turned over approximately a thousand cases each year and each missing person is one case, then what percentage of the trading account of Francisco Marco’s agency related to missing persons? And if I were to complicate the rule of three a little further, it would be interesting to know how many Método 3 employees were responsible for finding missing persons, given that during the six years I spent with the company I only dealt with two cases, which to my great pride I solved; these kinds of cases are the most rewarding within the profession.
Where Madeleine’s case was concerned, Francisco Marco answered the journalist from La Vanguardia with maximum audacity by stating that his agency had “about 40 people here and in Morocco”. To avoid repetition, I will avoid making any further comments, other than to say that I wish he had been struck dead when, upon being asked how he foresaw the ending of the Madeleine case, he said that he would “give Madeleine her dolls, calm her down, remove her from the place where she was, ring her parents and put her on the phone.”
The way in which things were turning out, Madeleine’s case would have to be closed. Brian Kennedy grew tired of trying to achieve the impossible, and of paying. Francisco Marco and José Luis Marco arranged to meet me at the Petit Paris Restaurant, which no longer exists as it was forced to close by customers who went there for meals on company accounts which were never settled.
Método 3’s name appeared on the list of clients who were in default because they had failed to pay a 3,000 Euro debt, as the accountant of Método 3 himself would have described it. He was the person who dealt with creditors. It was when we were inside the Petit Paris that Francisco Marco and José Luis Marco informed me that the contract with the Madeleine Fund had been terminated and that I should therefore take several days off in order to unwind. They also told me over that same meal that Brian Kennedy had suggested that I continue working on the case with him, an offer which was turned down by Francisco Marco and José Luis Marco on the grounds that I was too valuable to them. At that moment in time I was filled with pride, but the mere thought of it I now find repellent.
On 23rd November 2009 the news broke that Kevin Hallingen and Henry Exton from Oakley International had conned the Madeleine Fund out of half a million pounds. It would appear that that company had picked up where Método 3 left off.
On 13th December 2011, officers from the Policía Nacional (Spanish National Police) and Scotland Yard arrived at
Método 3’s premises in order to remove documentation related to the Madeleine McCann case. I will pause for a moment here to describe the star performance in the office by Marita Fernández when she found out that the Scotland Yard officers had arrived.
As she cannot speak English, she participated in the conversation via the interpreter who had accompanied the officers, to whom she blurted out the following words only, “How are you getting on with those child sexual abuse cases of yours? How are you combating it? Because that is something which, obviously, forms an innate part of your English genetic makeup and which you carry with you …” The interpreter was absolutely astounded, yet the Método 3 director insisted that she translate these words. I ended up asking a question in order to divert the officers’ attention and rescue the interpreter from this situation.
Whilst they were there,
TO BE CONTINUED
