16 May 2011
The Evening Standard
OH NO! SPYMASTER FALLS FOR CONMAN
Excerpt
WHAT is about Air Marshall Sir John Walker, ex-spymaster at the Defence Intelligence Service (DIS) and one of the City’s great and the good, and con artists? Last month, Sir John admitted to being duped by convicted fraudster, “trillion dollar conman” Russell King, who is so evasive he is known as Lord Voldemort (the Harry Potter character who cannot be named). First London investment bank sent its adviser Walker to check out King, and apparently found nothing awry in his schemes promising billions in Bahraini investment for the bank, a minerals bonanza in North Korea, and the takeover of Notts County Football Club (with Sven-Goran Eriksson at the helm). The Serious Fraud Office is now investigating this house of cards. Of King, Sir John now admits: “He was good at chat... he was a conman.”
THIS wasn’t the first time Walker had been led astray. In 2003, when he was on the board of private security company Inkerman, Sir John was “pleased to announce” the appointment of Kevin Halligen as CEO of an Inkerman subsidiary (according to Inkerman’s old press release). It was Halligen’s big break into the world of corporate spookery and the release spoke of Halligen’s role on MoD “special projects” (though his expertise was really in, erm, batteries). But doubts about him soon arose. After he left Inkerman, Halligen — by then parading as a full-blown ex-spy — bagged the half-a-million-pound contract to find Madeleine McCann (but allegedly spent most of his time in bars and strip clubs and buying mansions). Now he sits at Her Majesty’s leisure pending extradition to the US on £1.2 million fraud and money-laundering charges for a contract in which he promised to free two captive Trafigura staff in Ivory Coast (the appeal judgment is expected soon).
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