Now two more McCann Team insiders have spoken out – Antonio Tamarit, and Julian Peribanez, both Metodo 3 investigators.
Their book, La Cortina da Humo, or ‘The Smokescreen’, blows the lid off Metodo 3, exposing what a corrupt and criminal enterprise it was. Why did the McCann Team choose them? The book was immediately banned in Portugal. Books about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann regularly seem to get banned.
But CMOMM member PeterMac managed to get one from Amazon. He passed it to The Madeleine Foundation. Because of the significance of its contents, they paid for a professional, certified translation of it. And Andrew Simmons has written an introductory piece about it.
The book by Tamarit and Peribanez is copyright, but I’m pleased to host just one chapter of it here under the ‘fair use’ provisions of copyright legislation.
If you’re 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.
Read the following posts to get the whole story.
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An introduction to Chapter 13 of ‘The Smokescreen’, by Antonio Tamarit and Julian Peribanez
by Andrew Simmons of The Madeleine Foundation – February 2016
When The Madeleine Foundation became aware of this book, La Cortina da Humo, or ‘The Smokescreen’,
they contacted a Spanish researcher to get an overview of what the book was about. The book went on sale in Portugal in 2014 but was only on sale for one day, as Francisco Marco, Metodo 3's boss, managed to obtain an injunction restraining its sale on grounds of ‘breach of confidentiality’. It still can’t be bought in Portugal.
The book is by two people who were employed by the controversial, corrupt and criminal detective agency in Barcelona, Metodo 3, or ‘Method 3’. One of them, Julian Peribanez,
worked extensively on the Madeleine McCann investigation. He came to England more than once, worked very closely with Brian Kennedy
and his English investigator, money laundering expert Gary Hagland,
and even interviewed witnesses such as the Jensen sisters.
Chapter 13 of ‘The Smokescreen’ is entirely about Metodo 3’s involvement in the search for Madeleine. The Madeleine Foundation therefore commissioned an approved and certified Spanish-English translation of this chapter, at a cost of £202.05, to provide an accurate translation.
What follows are a few notes on the chapter.
Despite some of the comments in the chapter, Julian Peribanez still maintains that the McCanns are wholly innocent and that their search for Madeleine is genuine.
However, he maintains that they were deceived by Francisco Marco, the now disgraced ex-boss of Metodo 3,
which went into liquidation at the end of 2011. He gives chapter and verse on those deceptions.
What becomes very clear on reading this chapter is that Brian Kennedy was the mastermind behind the whole Metodo 3 operation. And that is not surprising, for in an article published many years ago, Brian Kennedy explicitly stated that he spent several months of the year in his Spanish villa. This turns out to be in Barcelona, the very place Metodo 3’s head office was based.
An obvious question that arises from reading this chapter is: how well did Brian Kennedy know Metodo 3 before Madeleine disappeared? Furthermore, did he know about the controversial and corrupt nature of Metodo 3? One of the Metodo 3 men he employed, Antonio Giminez Raso, was remanded in custody in Barcelona on 18 February 2008 on serious criminal charges of assisting a 27-strong vicious drug gang to carry out major drugs crimes.
Giminez Raso was a former inspector in the Catalonian regional drugs and child trafficking department but was either sacked, or left under a cloud, in early 2005. Julian Peribanez would have worked alongside him during the Madeleine McCann investigation. Giminez Raso was eventually acquitted of the charges against him, but not before the trial judge had publicly scolded him for being ‘far too close’ to members of the gang.
Peribanez’s chapter is angry. Much of what he writes comes over as seeking some kind of ‘revenge’ against Francisco Marco, perhaps for some perceived offence or unfairness against him. It sounds much like a typical story of ‘thieves falling out’. I can hardly imagine Peribanez as the epitome of integrity, while at the same time taking Marco’s shilling and when, for example, he clearly knew that Marcos was lying through his teeth about how many staff he was employing, was submitting false invoices and the like.
He does not therefore come over as a ‘witness of truth’. However, there are some valuable insights on some factual issues. I will list some of them here; they can be explored more fully in reading his account in Chapter 13 of ‘The Smokescreen’.
First of all, there is a short section of the chapter written by Antonio Tamarit, which discloses some significant issues:
1 Tamarit says that he was first contacted by Francisco Marco, boss of Metodo 3, whilst he was ‘on business’ in Tangier, Morocco - in October 2007. He gives no further details: ‘on business’ is so vague it could mean anything or nothing
2 Notice that Tamarit was told to stay in Tangier and meet someone from the government funded security risks company, Control Risks, but ended up meeting with Brian Kennedy. Tamarit thinks that Kennedy had nothing to do with Control Risks, but I suggest it is far more likely that Control Risks and Kennedy were working closely together. Indeed, Kennedy may well have been giving the orders to Control Risks – and quite possibly way before October.
3 He states that he was invited to meet with Brian Kennedy in Manchester. This might well refer to the house in Knutsford, Cheshire, which Brian Kennedy bought in 2007 for the purpose of acting as a base for his investigation, and part of which was seen on screen in the 2009 Channel 4 documentary (the ‘Mockumentary’). The existence of this base was first disclosed to Tony Bennett by Brian Kennedy’s lead investigator in England, Gary Hagland.
4 He then adds that he was not sent to Manchester after all, but that Marco’s mother, Marita Fernández,
and José Luis Marco Llavina, her nephew - Metodo 3’s accountant - travelled to Manchester instead. He makes this important declaration: “[Neither] had carried out any investigative work for many years…they made a big point of emphasising that where [the Madeleine McCann] 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”. Later he adds: “Método 3 was swindling [Madeleine’s Fund] which…was supported by hundreds of unsuspecting people whose sole objective was to find Madeleine…inflated expenses, invented items, false invoices, etc.”
5 People who have followed this case closely for many years will recall a search for Madeleine in the Rif mountain range, Morocco. Tamarit informs us that this was based on information from “two clairvoyants, one in France and one in Morocco”.
6 Tamarit explains how he visited numerous places in Morocco ‘looking for Madeleine’. He gives no detail about how exactly he set about this. Peribanez in his section of the chapter describes this alleged ‘search’ as ‘bizarre and insane’.
The section of the chapter by Julian Peribanez is longer, and he discloses several more subjects of interest:
The section of the chapter by Julian Peribanez is longer, and he discloses several more subjects of interest:
1 He says he spent ‘six years’ working for Metodo 3. As he was apparently still working there when the firm was raided and closed in late 2011, this was presumably from 2005 to 2011. Antonio Giminez Raso was also probably recruited in 2005.
2 He says that Metodo 3 ‘became involved in the search for Madeleine’ in October 2007. However, that is contradicted by Brian Kennedy’s man in England, Gary Hagland, who says that he and Metodo 3 were already involved in September. I suggest it’s very likely that Brian Kennedy had been in contact with Francisco Marco well before then.
3 He writes about an early meeting between the McCanns, Brian Kennedy, and Marita Fernández and José Luis Marco Llavina ‘in Manchester’. There is nothing whatsoever about this in Kate McCann’s book: ‘madeleine’.
4 Then he talks about a second meeting, this one apparently at the headquarters of Brian Kennedy’s Latium group in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Peribanez says that at this meeting he met: Brian Kennedy, ‘lawyer Edward Smethurst’, Madeleine’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann and ‘another lawyer who was a former police officer’. It would be interesting to know who that was! Also present were Francisco Marco and José Luis Marco, his cousin, or ‘half-brother’ as he has been described elsewhere. Once again, there is no mention of this in Kate McCann’s ‘very truthful’ book.
5 The account of that meeting is very interesting. After it, they all went off to have an evening meal at Brian Kennedy’s home - the palatial Swettenham Hall, once owned by the McAlpine family.
Peribanez says that “Kennedy and Madeleine’s parents were lovely people…” but also makes remarks about Marcos’s real purpose for being involved - to make a lot of money.
6 He says that the ‘searches’ for Madeleine took place only in Morocco and Portugal and that Metodo 3’s claims to have searched elsewhere were lies.
7 He explains that Brian Kennedy actually ‘relocated’ to Portugal for a while to control what was happening in the investigation – hence the video we have of Brian Kennedy and Peribanez walking around the streets of Praia da Luz, LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-74ragUCC8Y
8 He states that claims that Metodo 3 had either 20, or 40 people working on the Madeleine McCann investigation were an outright lie, there were only three.
9 Furthermore, claims of having a ‘bank’ of multilingual telephonists to staff the telephone hotline were also bogus. And when calls came in, he says they were from: “Fortune tellers (Spanish playing card and Tarot readers), necromancers, palmists, individuals who had dreams...and others who offered interpretations of those dreams.
10 Peribanez refers to a conversation he had with Francisco Marco and his cousin/half-brother José Luis Marco in the Petit Paris restaurant in Barcelona
when he was told that Brian Kennedy had terminated the contract with Metodo 3. But he doesn’t give a date. It is commonly assumed that the initial Metodo 3 contract was for just six months and lasted from about October 2007 to March 2008. However, there are statements which confirm that the McCann Team and Brian Kennedy continued to use Metodo 3 on a part-time basis until at least March 2009.
11 Peribanez describes the day when Scotland Yard arrived to collect boxes of evidence from the offices of Metodo 3 and gives an explanation of how a photograph of that event was taken.
12 Peribanez gives a useful account of how false invoices were created, saying that his boss “…obtained some El Corte Inglés travel invoices and subsequently falsified them by changing the details. These invoices can be found stored inside Método 3’s computers which were seized and are located at Barcelona Court no. 14 (Juzgado 14 de Barcelona). For the time being, they remain there by virtue of an action filed by Montserrat Turu against Francisco Marco for breach of confidentiality”.
13 The chapter concludes with a bitter attack on his former boss, Francisco Marco, and a fascinating explanation of what happened in December 2013 when he attempted, in turn, to alert Brian Kennedy, then Edward Smethurst, and finally the McCanns themselves as to how they had all been deceived wholesale by Marco about the scale of his operation - and how Marco had created masses of bogus invoices. None of them were interested in what Peribanez had to say. Peribanez gives a blow-by-blow account of how he corresponded with them all, including reproducing the letters to and from Edward Smethurst. It must be noted, though, that it took until December 2013 for Peribanez to tell the McCann Team about these issues.
Can we believe Peribanez’ version of events? He says he was an honest, sincere investigator. But he admits that Francisco Marco and his family, who ran Metodo 3, were thoroughly dishonest and clearly ‘on the make and on the take’ with no interest in or experience of finding missing people or children.
He says that Brian Kennedy and the McCanns were lovely people who had the misfortune to be thoroughly deceived by Marco sand his family.
His central claim is that Brian Kennedy, senior lawyer Edward Smethurst and the McCanns were sincere but naïve in believing that Metodo 3 really could find Madeleine, but were lied to by Marco
As we ponder whether this scenario is credible, we think back to December 2007, when Francisco Marco lied, lied and lied again by saying that he knew who Madeleine’s kidnappers were, that Madeleine was alive, that his men were ‘closing in on the kidnappers’, and finally that ‘Maddie will be home by Christmas’.
He told these outrageous lies in December 2007. In any normal situation, once these lies had been exposed, they would have been instantly sacked.
But not in this case. The McCann Team continued to employ Metodo 3 until March 2009 - another 15 months
Anyway, have a look at the translation and see what you think.
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t16084-exclusive-to-cmomm-corruption-and-criminality-inside-the-metodo-3-investigation-into-madeleine-mccann-s-disappearance-extracts-from-a-book-by-two-metodo3-men#400356