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Private Detective Who Allegedly Conned The McCann Family Has Been Found Dead

Private Detective Who Allegedly Conned The McCann Family Has Been Found Dead

Kevin Halligen reportedly used a huge portion of the fund set up to help find Maddie for personal things like fancy holidays

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

Police have launched an investigation after the body of Kevin Halligen was found at his Surrey mansion.

A spokesperson for Surrey Police has told the Daily Mail: "We were called to an address in 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."

Credit: Channel 5

Halligen was dubbed a 'cloak and dagger', 'James Bond' styled private detective, and was hired after British toddler Madeleine McCann disappeared in Portugal.

The Mirror says during his investigation, he boasted about being able to produce satellite imagery and telephone information from the night young Maddie went missing. That sounds pretty good, considering he also claimed to have ties with former FBI, CIA and Special Forces employees.

But when he handed over his elite 'satellite imagery', the McCanns found out it was just Google Earth screenshots.

But Halligen's reputation was disgraced when it was alleged he spent between £300-500,000 from the fund set up to help track Maddie down on useless tactics and personal items.

PA

One of those methods was reportedly hiring an actor to pretend to be a drunk priest, who would walk around Praia da Luz and see if anyone wanted to confess. Yeah sure, the whole world is hellbent on finding this toddler, yet the perpetrator will confide in a random priest no one has seen before.

He also allegedly used the huge fund to hire a personal chauffeur, buy expensive clothes and handbags, delicious meals and overseas holidays with his girlfriend.

A family friend of the McCanns told the Daily Mail: "The McCanns found him hard to deal with, because he was forever in another country and using different phones. He promised the earth, but it came to nothing."

Channel 5

Unsurprisingly, Halligen was eventually dumped by the family in the late 2000s, and was arrested in the UK and extradited to America for unrelated fraud charges.

He was convicted of defrauding a multinational corporation who had hired him to help secure the rescue of two employees taken into custody in the Ivory Coast in 2006.

Halligen was eventually sentenced to 41 months in jail, however he had already served 42 months in prison during the trial and was sent back to Ireland.

Sources: Daily Mail, Mirror

Featured Image Credit: Channel 5

Topics: Death, UK News, News, UK, Madeleine McCann