For reasons not immediately clear,
social media has started buzzing again
over the allegedly corrupt practices of
one of the private detective agencies
hired by the parents of Madeleine
McCann, shortly after the little girl
vanished from a tourist complex in Praia
da Luz, Portugal.
Much has already been written - both in
the UK and abroad - of the money billed
to the Madeleine Fund by Barcelona
agency Metodo 3.
Quoting Spanish newspaper ABC, Diário de
Notícias confirmed two years ago that
Metodo 3 detectives “affirmed that they
had clues pointing to a pedophile ring
which had kidnapped the child, and for
the journeys made to Portugal, Morocco
and the United Kingdom, the agency
charged 70,000 euros, without presenting
any results - because in reality there
never was any investigation”.
A source from ABC told the paper that
Metodo 3 “guaranteed and charged for
five investigators” on the case, “when
in reality there weren’t even three”.
For the journeys to Portugal, “the
agency charged as if four people were
travelling”, when only one had, and this
person “did not even speak Portuguese”.
As DN affirmed in 2013, Metodo 3’s
practices eventually came under police
scrutiny - not over the agency’s
handling of the Madeleine case, but over
allegedly illegal wire taps on political
parties “and other irregularities”.
What seems to have stirred up new
controversy is the online publishing of
a previously banned book in Spanish by
former Metodo 3 private eyes Julián
Peribañez and Antonio Tamarjit.
Entitled, La Cortina de Humo (the
Smokescreen), its section on the
Madeleine investigation has been
translated into English.
The bottom line is that one of the
writer’s claims he tried to alert the
Madeleine Fund to the kind of fraud that
he claims had been perpetrated against
it, so they could all work out a
“strategy whereby they - the parents of
the little girl, in whose innocence we
have always believed - would not suffer
any harm from this intrigue”.
Bizarrely, Julián Peribañez’ concerns
met with what he described as a “wall of
silence”.
It is this wall that seems to have set
tongues wagging across social media -
where blogsite and fora fixation on what
has become the millennium’s greatest
mystery shows no sign of abating,
despite the fact that it is nearly nine
years since Madeleine disappeared
without any verifiable trace.
Why would there have been no interest in
discovering the extent of fraud of a
fund which both writers contend was
“supported by hundreds of unsuspecting
people whose sole objective was to find
Madeleine”?
The controversial Complete Mystery of
Madeleine McCann forum is also asking
why Metodo 3 was hired in the first
place, adding: “If you are reading this
as a guest and are not yet a member of
CMOMM, why not join us, get yourself
briefed on one of the most mysterious
cases of the century and maybe even help
us in our quest to find out what really
did happen to Madeleine McCann.”
Since the CMOMM published its
“exclusive” on what it calls the
“corruption and criminality inside
Metodo 3”, twitter posts have been
picking it up and once again this
apparently eternal mystery enters new
ground.
For anyone who can read Spanish, La
Cortina de Humo can be found on Amazon
and via Spanish website casadellibro.com.
For those who can’t, the translation of
Chapter 13, concentrating on Metodo 3’s
investigation of Madeleine’s
disappearance can be found on CMOMM.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com |