DEATH FALL Madeleine McCann investigator who ‘fleeced her parents out of £300k’ died in ‘bloodied’ fall at mansion
Scottish Sun – Joe Duggan
9th May 2020
A CONMAN private detective accused of fleecing Madeleine McCann’s parents out of £300,000 died in a “bloodied” fall at his mansion, an inquest has found.
The body of Kevin Halligen, 56, was found in a pool of blood in his home in Surrey in January, 2018, but a pathologist told Woking Coroner’s Court there was “no sign of an assault”.
Private eye Kevin Halligen died of a brain haemorrhage in 2018 following a fall in his home, an inquest found
He was hired by Kate and Gerry McCann after their daughter went missing in 2007
Police had treated Halligen’s death as “unexplained”, but coroner Richard Travers ruled he died from a brain haemorrhage and detectives found “no suspicious circumstances”, The Daily Mirror reports.
Convicted fraudster Halligen was described at the inquest as an “intelligence and security officer”, with his death reported to the coroner under the name Richard Powell.
A verdict of accidental death was recorded.
The dodgy “detective” – who falsely claimed to be an ex-MI6 spook – was hired by Kate and Gerry McCann after their daughter went missing in Portugal in 2007.
Halligen fleeced the Find Madeleine McCann fund out of £300,000 after lying about his high-tech spy equipment and “CIA contacts”, a Netflix documentary claimed.
His firm, Oakley International, received the cash after Madeleine disappeared from the Praia da Luz resort, aged three.
Oakley International were said to have hired a couple with a young daughter who looked like Maddie to walk around Praia da Luz – where Madeleine vanished aged three in 2007.
The Surrey-based Irishman promised his “A Team” of ex-FBI and special forces investigators would track Madeleine down using satellite technology – which turned out to be printouts from Google Earth.
But after just five months the contract was terminated after Gerry McCann began to question how the money was being spent.
And it emerged Oakley had failed to follow up on dozens of calls to a tips hotline.
Halligen was forced to deny blowing a large chunk of the money on luxury hotels, flights and the high life. He went into hiding with a string of debts, including a reported £100,000 to Exton who had paid his investigators from his own pocket because he believed they were making real progress. The following year Halligen was indicted in the US for a £1.2million fraud in an unrelated case.
EXTRADITED TO US
He had been on the run for months when The Sun tracked him down to a hotel in 2009 – and he whined “How did you find me?” as cops handcuffed him.
He was later extradited and handed over to the FBI – but continued to deny fleecing the McCann fund. Former pals said Halligen had tricked his way into the top reaches of Washington society by posing as an ex-intelligence agent. He often stayed in five-star hotels and paid a chauffeur £4,000-a-month to drive him around. He even faked his own wedding, hiring an actor to perform the sham ceremony after lying to fiancée Maria Dybczak, a US lawyer, that they could not wed in a normal way because of his past in undercover operations.
Paramedics arriving at Halligen’s mansion in Normandy, Surrey, battled to save him by performing CPR, but he died. A post-mortem found he died of an acute subdural haemorrhage. Coroner Mr Travers said: “Mr Powell suffered a fall at his home address… and an ambulance was called.
“Police attended and found no suspicious circumstances and the post-mortem examination did not reveal injuries consistent with an assault or third-party involvement.”
A verdict of accidental death was recorded.
Comment: A CONMAN private detective – More accurately: A CONMAN claiming to be a private detective………..
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