Liverpool Echo
Luke Traynor
A businessman whose firm helped look for Madeleine McCann was today remanded in custody after US authorities launched extradition proceedings over an alleged £1.3m fraud. Kevin Halligen, 48, was due to apply for bail at a hearing at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court, in London, but did not attend and was not represented by a lawyer.
The US Department of Justice issued an indictment for Halligen, from Surrey, last month, alleging he tried to defraud a London law firm of 2.1 million US dollars (£1.3m). It claimed he took the money to secure the release of Dutch business executives arrested in the Ivory Coast but instead spent it on a mansion.
The Irish national was arrested at a hotel in Oxford on November 24 where he had been staying for several months under an assumed name.
Halligen's firm, Oakley International, was used by Madeleine's parents, Allerton-born Kate and Gerry McCann, for around six months last year to look for their missing daughter. The firm was paid £300,000 by backers of Mr and Mrs McCann to help search for Madeleine, three, who went missing from an Algarve resort in May 2007.
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