The mysterious death of Kevin Halligen

I will let members decide on this one.  

This person named Adrian Gatton suddenly appeared on twitter just a couple of days ago and now has just 10 tweets to his name.  This happened just after Halligen died.  He says in his bio he is an investigative journalist and tells us he  interviewed Halligen and made the Channel 5 programme The McCanns and the Conman.

He is now tweeting lots of stuff, and yet asking for information from people when he has been on this case for so long?  

Have a read of the timeline and see what you make of it...


https://twitter.com/AdrianGatton

Adrian Gatton, a TV director and investigative journalist, who made a documentary with Halligen in 2014 for Channel 5, told the paper that “although his death is certainly not foul play, as has been suggested, there are certainly a lot of people who wished him ill”.

I wonder if the gruesome twosome were among this category?

The spoof passport story is really weird....

ETA: This case always had the hallmarks of depravity, imo, but is the proverbial now really hitting the fan?

candyfloss wrote:Madeleine McCann investigator Kevin Halligen found dead

The death of Kevin Halligen, who was previously jailed for fraud, is being treated as "unexplained" by police.
19:21, UK,




By Martin Brunt, Crime Correspondent




Police are investigating the death of one of the first private detectives hired by the parents of missing Madeleine McCann.


Kevin Halligen, 56, was found unwell at his girlfriend's Surrey home and later died.
Police are treating his death as "unexplained" and are expected to pass a report to a coroner.
Mr Halligen's company, Oakley International, was hired on a £500,000 contract by Kate and Gerry McCann and the administrators of the Find Madeleine Fund in 2008, a year after their daughter vanished in Portugal.
The McCanns had become frustrated with the failure of the Portuguese police to find Madeleine or any clue to what happened to her.


Image: Kate and Gerry McCann's daughter Madeleine disappeared in Portugal
Mr Halligen portrayed himself as a James Bond-type figure, though a source said he was later considered "a bit of a fantasist".
The McCanns ended the investigator's contract in 2009, believing he had failed to deliver the work they were paying him for.
Dublin-born Mr Halligen, who had dual American and Irish nationality, was later extradited to the US where he admitted fraud charges over a previous contract.
He was jailed, but freed because of the time he had already served in custody and later returned to the UK.

In a TV interview he denied he had misused funds in his Madeline investigation and dismissed accusations of leading a lavish lifestyle.


Surrey Police said: "We were called to an address in Cobbett Hill Road, Normandy, Guildford, on Monday following a report of a man in his 50s having been taken unwell, who subsequently died.

"The death is being treated as unexplained and a file will be passed to the coroner's office in due course."

The McCanns did not comment, but it is understood they had had no association with him since terminating his contract.

Madeleine was nearly four when she disappeared from the family's rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve coast in May 2007.

https://news.sky.com/story/madeleine-mccann-investigator-kevin-halligen-found-dead-11206829

I just can't help commenting on GM's face and expression here.    

ETA: Commenting is the wrong word as words often fail me when it comes to GM.

candyfloss wrote:I will let members decide on this one.  

This person named Adrian Gatton suddenly appeared on twitter just a couple of days ago and now has just 10 tweets to his name.  This happened just after Halligen died.  He says in his bio he is an investigative journalist and tells us he  interviewed Halligen and made the Channel 5 programme The McCann's and the Conman.

He is now tweeting lots of stuff, and yet asking for information from people when he has been on this case for so long?  

Have a read of the timeline and see what you make of it...


https://twitter.com/AdrianGatton

He's a bit like a heavyweight version of Jez Wilkins.

Of course Richard D Hall would maintain that any "researcher" whose work has made it as far as broadcast TV is bound to be compromised in some way.

NEW


Bizarre ploys of ‘detective’ Kevin Halligen who conned the McCanns REVEALED


THE extraordinary tactics of the bogus private investigator hired by the parents of Madeleine McCann to find their daughter can now be revealed. Kevin Halligen dreamt up bizarre undercover methods in his bid to catch the little girl’s kidnapper.

PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sun, Jan 21, 2018


The Walter Mitty character, who was found dead earlier this month, was a heavy drinker, a liar and fantasist who persuaded Kate and Gerry McCann to part with £300,000 from the Madeleine Fund after visiting them at their home in Rothley, Leicestershire. 
Part of the reason the McCanns were persuaded by him was because he took along Henry Exton, who had run brilliant surveillance operations at M15 and has an impeccable reputation. 
But Mr Exton was also duped by Halligen. 
Madeleine vanished on May 3, 2007, and Halligen offered the desperate couple the services of his firm, Oakley International, a year later.  

The deal was for the so-called Operation Omega where Mr Exton ran an undercover team in Praia da Luz on the Algarve. 
It was where the McCanns’ friend Jane Tanner had seen a man carrying a child from the couple’s apartment. 
Halligen went on to recruit a couple with a young daughter to walk around Luz to try to flush out the kidnapper. 
Richard Parton, a security expert in Washington, was appalled by the ploy.  

Speaking in a documentary, The Conman And The McCanns, he said: “He got a couple to go on holiday with a child who looks a lot like Madeleine. 
“Apparently, she was to have been used as bait.” 
An appeal for witnesses produced a London City worker who confirmed a description from Jane Tanner. 
He helped produce an image of the suspect. 
But one man was trailed for weeks, despite the witness saying he didn’t look like the suspect

Halligen was also supposed to be using top Washington security contacts to secure military satellite images showing who had entered the apartment. 
No such images exist and Halligen produced Google Earth photographs. 
An unimpressed Mr Exton was by now £100,000 out of pocket, with Halligen’s cheques bouncing. 
In 2012 Halligen was extradited from Britain to America where he admitted conning millions of pounds from a company whose executives had been kidnapped in Africa and was jailed.

Mr Exton says he regrets working with Halligen but defends the work done in Portugal.  
“The distraction of Halligen’s behaviour undermined the very good work that was done,” he said. 
One key part of that work was getting e-fit images of a man seen carrying Madeleine towards the beach, pictures Scotland Yard later publicised. 
Maker of the documentary, Adrian Gatton, said he saw Halligen in 2017, “somewhat the worse for wear”.  

He wrote on Twitter: “He was recovering from a car crash, an accident he claimed was an attempted ‘hit’. 
“In 2016 he told me he had been poisoned.” 
Surrey Police are preparing a report for the coroner on Dublin-born Halligen’s death on January 8 at the home of his girlfriend near Guildford. 
They say his death is “unexplained”.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/907551/madeleine-mccann-Kevin-Halligen-private-investigator-death-ploys-revealed

Commenting on the above article is Adrian Gatton.



Adrian Gatton‏ @AdrianGatton · 14m14 minutes ago

Today's Express (me quoted). For clarity: Halligen told people in DC he used a fake priest and "honeytrap" but it was just another Halligen "spy" yarn. #Halligen #McCann
Bizarre ploys of ‘detective’ Kevin Halligen who conned the McCanns REVEALED

What are the chances of that; a fake investigator getting through to fake crime victims?

unreorganised wrote:What are the chances of that; a fake investigator getting through to fake crime victims?

One has to wonder in what way Halligan 'conned' the McCanns? If one is to subscribe to the theory that the McCanns faked Madeleine's abduction and that she died that week at Ocean Club, then what exactly was the role of Halligan and Exton?

Is it possible that one or both of them were themselves conned by the McCanns? Seems highly unlikely, imo.

Surely there must have been some kind of  weird bluff, double bluff  situation going on? My mind is boggling, as it so often does in this case.

This is interesting, though:

Mr Exton says he regrets working with Halligen but defends the work done in Portugal.  
“The distraction of Halligen’s behaviour undermined the very good work that was done,” he said.
One key part of that work was getting e-fit images of a man seen carrying Madeleine towards the beach, pictures Scotland Yard later publicised.
Maker of the documentary, Adrian Gatton, said he saw Halligen in 2017, “somewhat the worse for wear”.

Seeing as there are many who think that Smithman looks like Gerry McCann, I wonder what Exton thought?

I daresay Exton regrets working with Halligen as he may have been the one to be "conned". Was it not he and his team who were not paid by Halligen?

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/madeleine-mccann-investigator-kevin-halligen-3439744

"Private investigators, including Henri Exton, a former national head of undercover operations for the British police, found it harder and harder to get their fees from Halligen. Mr Exton claims he is owed more than £100,000 for work he did on the Madeleine case.

Documents are understood to show that while the firm was receiving the fund’s cash, Halligen was spending large amounts for his personal use. This are said to have included first-class flights, hotels and chauffeur-driven cars."

I daresay that Halligen was hired for his potential ineffectiveness, but he in turn unexpectedly hired Exton and Co. as subcontractors who actually did an honest investigation and complied the notorious report and efits famously withheld by TM.

I too would be extremely interested in Henri Exton's thoughts today.

http://algarvenewswatch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/more-bizarre-twists-in-mccann-saga.html

"Henri Exton, an MI5’s former undercover operations chief who led the team, told the Sunday Times he was “utterly stunned” when he watched the Crimewatch programme and saw the evidence he had passed to the McCanns presented as a new breakthrough.
He said the fund had silenced his team with a lawyer’s letter binding them to the confidentiality of a report they had compiled that contained controversial findings. Mr Exton said the legal threat had prevented them from handing over the report to Scotland Yard’s investigation until detectives had obtained written permission from the fund.

The Oakley International report, delivered in November 2008, gave little credibility to Jane Tanner’s 9.15pm sighting and focused instead on the 10pm sighting by the Irish Smith family. The investigators recommended that their e-fit images be released without delay.
For some reason the images were not published even in Kate McCann’s 2011 book Madeleine, though it devoted a whole section to eight “key sightings” and carried e-fits on all of them except the Smiths’.

In its Insight report, the Sunday Times quoted one of the Oakley International investigators as saying: “I was absolutely stunned when I watched the programme . . . It most certainly wasn’t a new timeline and it certainly isn’t a new revelation. It is absolute nonsense to suggest either of those things . . . And those e-fits you saw on Crimewatch are ours.” "

Just for information and those that haven't seen this here is the Sunday Times article re Halligen, Exton and McCanns and those e-fits,  followed by an apology from the paper.



https://maddiemccannmystery.forumotion.co.uk/t1056-the-sunday-times-report-27-october-2013?highlight=sunday+times





https://maddiemccannmystery.forumotion.co.uk/t995-sunday-times-apology-for-e-fit-article-and-subsequent-55000-payout?highlight=sunday+times

Mimi wrote:Post removed and under review, and probably could be  libel - we need to be careful.

Ok Candyfloss.  Is it alright for me to just point out that KH was accused of money laundering ?

https://joana-morais.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/former-mccann-detective-kevin-halligen.html

Was he convicted Mimi?  I know he spent time in prison for fraud I believe. 

It was Henry Exton I was more concerned with in your post..... Halligen as we know was no angel.  But then we only have what we read in papers etc.  In the documentary he did say he never spent a penny of the fund on himself, not so much as a suit.

Yes, KH admitted guilt to fraud and spent 41 months in prison.  Apparently money laundering comes under the fraud heading, so I don`t know the details - I got it from Joana`s site.

OK re: HE.

It was in the Washington Post

KEVIN HALLIGEN - Pleads GUILTY
Fri May 17, 2013 7:47 pm

WASHINGTON—Kevin Richard Halligen, 51, an Irish citizen, pled guilty today to wire fraud, a federal charge stemming from a scheme in which he defrauded $2.1 million from a Netherlands-based commodities trading company, announced United States Attorney Ronald C Machen Jr and Valerie Parlave, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Halligen pled guilty to one count of wire fraud, the first of two counts of an indictment that was returned against him in 2009 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. As part of the plea agreement, the government agreed to dismiss the second count of the indictment, which was a money laundering charge stemming from the same scheme. The charge of wire fraud carries a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, the parties agreed that Halligen’s likely range would be a prison term of 33 to 41 months and a fine between $7,500 and $75,000. Under the plea agreement, Halligen also must pay $2.1 million in restitution to the company that was the victim of his scheme. The Honorable Colleen Kollar-Kotelly scheduled sentencing for June 27, 2013. The wire fraud charge stems from actions taken by Halligen in 2006 and 2007, when he was the Chief Executive Officer of Red Defence International (RDI), a London-based security consulting and crisis management firm, which was hired by Trafigura Beheer BV (Trafigura), a Netherlands-based international commodities trading company, and its London-based law firm, Waterson Hicks.

Plea Agreement

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/kevin-halligen-plea-agreement/160/

Bampots wrote:https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/675904/madeleine-mccann-maddie-conman-detective-child-bait-kevin-halligen

Well, it is quite usual for reconstructions using lookalikes to be made in the hope of jogging people's memories and solving outstanding cases but I don't think it would have been any help in this one!

Dee Coy wrote:
I too would be extremely interested in Henri Exton's thoughts today.

http://algarvenewswatch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/more-bizarre-twists-in-mccann-saga.html

"Henri Exton, an MI5’s former undercover operations chief who led the team, told the Sunday Times he was “utterly stunned” when he watched the Crimewatch programme and saw the evidence he had passed to the McCanns presented as a new breakthrough.
He said the fund had silenced his team with a lawyer’s letter binding them to the confidentiality of a report they had compiled that contained controversial findings. Mr Exton said the legal threat had prevented them from handing over the report to Scotland Yard’s investigation until detectives had obtained written permission from the fund.

The Oakley International report, delivered in November 2008, gave little credibility to Jane Tanner’s 9.15pm sighting and focused instead on the 10pm sighting by the Irish Smith family. The investigators recommended that their e-fit images be released without delay.
For some reason the images were not published even in Kate McCann’s 2011 book Madeleine, though it devoted a whole section to eight “key sightings” and carried e-fits on all of them except the Smiths’.

In its Insight report, the Sunday Times quoted one of the Oakley International investigators as saying: “I was absolutely stunned when I watched the programme . . . It most certainly wasn’t a new timeline and it certainly isn’t a new revelation. It is absolute nonsense to suggest either of those things . . . And those e-fits you saw on Crimewatch are ours.” "

Can you be legally bound by a third party from supplying information/potential evidence to a Police enquiry? I wouldn't trust Exton any more than any of the others. Him, Halligen, Mitchell, they're all professional disinformation mongers, cut from the same cloth IMO.

Remember back, before "Pizzagate", wasn't TB was claiming he knew the identity of the people used for the Exton photofits? Why couldn't it just be a picture of the Podestas that they got off the internet? Sure does look like them. Just like Gail Cooper's creepy man bears a strong resemblance to Steven Wynyard. And he's one of theirs!

Interesting stuff. Kate's book is a good reference point for this case. She omits the Smith-man e-fit and claims that Smith-man was in all probability Tanner-man. She does not want Smith-man as a separate sighting.

It would appear that the very blond man of Scandinavian appearance whom Mrs Fenn's niece sees on Thursday afternoon does not appear as a legitimate e-fit in Kate's book. He is the person Kate describes in her book as Witness Six. And she claims that  Sketch No 4  is his portrait.  However this portrait is of a man with very dark hair who is of North African or possibly southern Mediterranean appearance. He could not look less Scandinavian.

Kate writes in her book: 'The witness thought this was the first gate along the pathway from the road. If her recollection is correct, it was the gate to apartment 5B, where our friends Mat and Rachael were staying. That afternoon, Rachael, Matt and their daughter were on the beach at Praia da Luz with the rest of our friends. They were away from the complex from before 3pm until 6pm.

And as far as I can see there is no portrait or e-fit of the two blond men that the Jensen sisters saw on Thursday afternoon - I think on the veranda of apartment 5C. Their testimony was ignored to the extent that they went back to Luz to speak to the McCanns directly but by then the McCanns had been made arguido...

It would seem that men of fair/blond appearance are not to be countenanced as possible suspects in Kate's book as all four images of suspects in Kate's book show men with dark hair.

Can we possibly conclude from this that Mrs Fenn's niece's sighting and the Jensen sisters' sighting are of relevance and there is a need to obfuscate?

"Henri Exton, an MI5’s former undercover operations chief who led the team, told the Sunday Times he was “utterly stunned” when he watched the Crimewatch programme and saw the evidence he had passed to the McCanns presented as a new breakthrough.
He said the fund had silenced his team with a lawyer’s letter binding them to the confidentiality of a report they had compiled that contained controversial findings. Mr Exton said the legal threat had prevented them from handing over the report to Scotland Yard’s investigation until detectives had obtained written permission from the fund.

The Oakley International report, delivered in November 2008, gave little credibility to Jane Tanner’s 9.15pm sighting and focused instead on the 10pm sighting by the Irish Smith family. The investigators recommended that their e-fit images be released without delay.
For some reason the images were not published even in Kate McCann’s 2011 book Madeleine, though it devoted a whole section to eight “key sightings” and carried e-fits on all of them except the Smiths’.

In its Insight report, the Sunday Times quoted one of the Oakley International investigators as saying: “I was absolutely stunned when I watched the programme . . . It most certainly wasn’t a new timeline and it certainly isn’t a new revelation. It is absolute nonsense to suggest either of those things . . . And those e-fits you saw on Crimewatch are ours.” "

Ha, Unreorganised - Cooper Creeper Man is so Steve Wynyard...!


I absolutely think that the Exton 2in1 photofits are the Podesta Brothers.


'Pimpleman' has got to be based on New Zealand's own David Bain :

https://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/78908/original.jpg

https://static2.stuff.co.nz/1236722664/605/2251605.jpg

Inquest - Death due to a subdural haemorrhage.....




Adrian Gatton‏ @AdrianGatton · 8m8 minutes ago

@skymartinbrunt Maddie investigator Kevin Halligen’s inquest at Woking Coroner’s Court. Given name: Richard Powell (his latest alias, as he told me). Occupation: Intelligence and Security Officer (sic). Cause of death: acute subdural haemorrhage. #Halligen #McCann

https://radiopaedia.org/articles/subdural-haemorrhage

I've had to look that one up!

I wonder if this is classed as natural causes, in which case I don't think there would need to be a full inquest.

Adrian Gatton‏ @AdrianGatton · 5m5 minutes ago


Death of a ‘spy’. An intriguing case for the coroner’s officer. Madeleine McCann investigator Kevin Halligen’s inquest opened and adjourned at Woking Coroner’s Court. Cause of death: acute subdural haemorrhage. No sign of assault. #Halligen




Adrian Gatton‏ @AdrianGatton · 5m5 minutes ago

Given name: Richard Powell
aka: Kevin Richard Halligen
aka: Richard Halligen
aka: Kevin Patrick Halligan
dob: 14 July 1961
Occupation: Intelligence and Security Officer #Halligen #McCann




Adrian Gatton‏ @AdrianGatton · 5m5 minutes ago

This is the information reported to the coroner’s officer, not necessarily findings of fact. (Except for cause of death and date of death: 8 Jan 2018) Coroner’s investigator will now disentangle all that #Halligen #McCann

Adrian Gatton‏ @AdrianGatton · 1m1 minute ago


@bbcnews BBC News - Haemorrhage killed man accused of Madeleine McCann fraud http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42804612 … - this report may be taken to imply I thought Halligen was a spook, in fact the coroner today gave intel officer as Halligen’s occupation (ahem) #Halligen #McCann





Intel Officer??????

Haemorrhage killed man accused of Madeleine McCann fraud





1 hour ago

There were no signs of being Kevin Halligen having been assaulted, an inquest was told

A private detective accused of siphoning off money donated to try to find Madeleine McCann died of a brain haemorrhage, an inquest has been told.

Kevin Halligen, 56, fell ill at his home in Normandy, Guildford, on 8 January and could not be revived.

Woking Coroner's Court was told Mr Hallingen had died from an acute subdural haemorrhage.

He had denied misusing funds intended to aid the search for Madeleine, who went missing in Portugal in May 2007.

His Washington-based firm, Oakley International, was paid about £300,000 for a six-month contract, which saw the company hire other private detectives, set up a hotline and process information.




The firm had initially been awarded a £500,000 contract but the McCanns terminated the arrangement before paying any more fees, saying it was because Halligen failed to fulfil certain agreements.

He was later forced to deny claims the money was used to pay for first-class travel, luxury hotel suites, a chauffeur and a mansion in Virginia in the United States.


In 2012, Mr Halligan, an Irish national, was extradited to the US to face charges over an unrelated £1.3m fraud to which he pleaded guilty the following year.

He was sentenced to 41 months and deported from the country soon after because of the time he had already spent on remand in prison.

Following Mr Halligan's death, Adrian Gatton, a TV director and investigative journalist, said the intelligence and security officer had not been in good health.

"There was blood around the house, probably caused by previous falls when he was either drunk or blacking out," he said.

A pathologist told the inquest there was "no sign of an assault".

Coroner Simon Wickens opened and adjourned the inquest to 2 July, adding the date was subject to change.

https://maddiemccannmystery.forumotion.co.uk/post?t=2155&mode=reply

https://www.your.md/condition/subdural-haematoma/#introduction

The blood around the house couldn`t have been from that as I don`t think the blood leaks out of the body - it just builds up under the skull. So all the other blood around the house, as they say, must have been from other injuries.

Another case - Subdural haematomas can go undetected for a few days after a bang to the head.