Thank you to wicksy from the maddiecasefiles for the translation.
'The relevant chapter in La Cortina de Humo (The Smokescreen) summarised: two ex-detectives from Método 3 claim that the agency defrauded the Find Madeleine Fund and Brian Kennedy, and when alerted to this neither entity showed the slightest interest.
First, a bit of background information. The authors are Julián Peribañez and Antonio Tamarit. Both worked for Método 3 on the Madeleine case, Antonio mostly in Morocco, and Julián in Portugal. As Julián speaks English he was used as an interpreter in meetings with the McCanns, and so privy to inside information.
The authors claim that right from the start Francisco Marco, the head of Método 3, saw the investigation as an opportunity to make a lot of money out of Madeleine. He consistently lied about the number of detectives working on the case, claiming there were 20 when at most there were 4. Consequently the claims for expenses, travel costs etc were fraudulently based on 20 detectives. FM also saw the case as an excellent way of getting free publicity for the agency, and courted the Spanish and international media to that end. The hotline was also fraudulent, as calls were diverted to the Método 3 office and answered by detectives with poor language skills, rather than being handled by employees who spoke a wide range of languages, as claimed.
The first contact was when Julián phoned the Kennedys in the first week of December 2013 and spoke to Brian's son Patrick to try to organise a meeting (a long and friendly conversation). Because of financial problems (presumably Julián's) and Christmas commitments they decided to postpone the meeting until January.
He then sent an email to Brian Kennedy on 8th January 2014 in which he explained why he wanted to meet him, to show proof that they had been defrauded and work out a strategy as to what to do next. He got a confirmation that the email was received but no reply. After sending the email twice more, he got an out of office message saying that BK was in America and enquiries should be addressed to Ed Smethurst.
It then took Julián four emails to get Ed Smethurst's email, and when he wrote got an answer that it would be difficult for them to get involved in a lawsuit against Método 3 because they had to concentrate on looking for Madeleine, or at least finding out who abducted her.
Finding this response hard to believe, he wrote back to Smethurst in his capacity as a director of the Find Madeleine fund. In the book he reproduces the email he got in reply in full:
Dear Julián,
I have just had a phone conference with our advisors. As you know the Metropolitan Police are now in charge of the investigation. Because of this, the Trust has agreed that we will not meet or discuss the investigation with any private detectives whilst the Met's investigation continues. This is why we can't meet with you.
However, if you have any information that could help the Trust or the investigation, please feel free to send it by email and it will be gratefully received.
Julián was alarmed at getting such a cold, distant answer and, disappointed, wrote another email to the fund, again reproduced in full in the book. The gist of it is:
So although we've said we want to help you uncover a fraud that you were subjected to, you don't want to meet with us or help us unmask the agency that stole money that was intended to find Madeleine McCann, money that was given by the warm-hearted general public and ended up in the pockets of M3. Please, I need to know if this is correct, because it's hard to understand your position, so I need to know for sure if I can count on your cooperation.
He didn't get any answer.'
