Fraud

In the comments section in our post “The Narrative of Negligence” we mentioned that there had been 2 very interesting articles published about Maddie.

The first one was the Mirror article of October 24 “Madeleine McCann detectives examine former suspect's pictures of children after Sunday People probe” about Wojciech Krokowski and about who we wrote our post “Sagresman”, explaining why we thought that it was a very important message to all those interested and able to understand it: the exposure of swinging was now on the table.

The other article of interest was the Sun’s article of October 26 “‘£100,000 fraud’ on Maddie fund” about a huge fraud of £100,000 concerning the Find Madeleine fund, as its title explicitly states.

Please note the wording we have just used. We could have said that it was about a huge fraud by someone ripping-off the Find Madeleine fund but we didn’t. We were intentionally specious.

Having fully understood the intent of the article we decided to collaborate and play along with it so wished to be as specious as the other side.

The subtitle is equally specious when it says “WHISTLEBLOWER EXCLUSIVE: Search money rip-off claim”.

Only inside and in the text’s smaller print does it tell the uncloaked truth: “The fund to find Madeleine McCann was ripped off by up to £100,000, whistleblowers claim.”

The subtlety? Saying “rip” in big words and “fraud” in even bigger ones so that the eye captures them immediately and only then use the truthful “ripped” inside in the small letters of the text.

The report, one only later finds out when reading it, is about how the Find Madeleine fund was ripped off and not because it was a rip-off.

But the mind, led by the word “fraud” in the title and the “rip-off” in the subtitle is misled into thinking that ripping-off, or fraud, was done by the Find Madeleine fund, by one of its people.

Later, when the “correction” comes when it’s said, in much smaller letters that the fraud was done against the Find Madeleine fund, the damage has already been done.

In the public’s brain the seed of fraud was successfully planted in the Find Madeleine fund’s fertile soil to be denigrated.

The report is about how an unidentified person has wrongly used £100,000 of the Find Madeleine fund.

This news echoed in the Portuguese press.

Many have said it was just the rehashing of news about Kevin Halligen.

In our opinion it couldn’t possibly be. If it was so, why not name him? If it were him, would there be the need for 2 whistleblowers to sign affidavits to the Sun?

This was on October 26 and many days have passed since. Today, we still do not know the identity of that person.

It’s a fact that a crime of £100,000 has been reported by a newspaper (?) and apparently no one in the UK wants to know anything about it.

The parents, to whom the Sun allegedly handed this directly, bypassing any and all legitimate authorities, have not reacted even though they did supposedly say through their ex-former spokesman Clarence Mitchell: “Madeleine’s Fund takes extremely seriously any suggestion monies intended for the search have been obtained fraudulently. Kate, Gerry and the other directors of Madeleine’s Fund will co-operate fully with authorities to ensure these claims are fully investigated.”

Not a word from them since. Not the minimal reaction. It’s like £100,000 is just short change for them and for the Find Madeleine fund that is supposed to help the search of their missing daughter.

£100,000 seem just to be something someone carelessly dropped on the floor and it wasn’t worth the effort of bending the back to pick it up.

Remember the hype that a dossier containing opinions caused last year?

It cost Brenda Leyland her life and even the Commissioner of the Met referred to the dossier publicly on a radio show. Sky News pounded our ears every 15 minutes with it that day. Days of tragic memory, those.

A dossier with opinions deserved all that but the Find Madeleine fund being ripped-off of £100,000 deserves… nothing. Only silence.

After this report we even had the news from Sun “McCanns: We’ll never give up” that the McCanns had ring-fenced £750,000 to search for Maddie after Operation Grange archived the case – once again making everyone wonder if they had to ring-fence this money to find Madeleine then what else was at risk to spend it on?

One has to wonder if in this £750,000 is included the money that they put aside into the separate account destined to continue to search in case the Met washed their hands off the case. Clarence Mitchell was very clear that such an account was created, only we never got to know how much money ever went into it.

If this £750,000 is in that separate account, then how much money remained in the Find Madeleine fund and what is it expected to be spent on?

But as the article seems to say “Kate and Gerry McCann have already ringfenced the rest of the cash in the Find Madeleine Fund, around £750,000” it seems this amount is all there is left in terms of money in the Find Madeleine fund.

We think that to whoever has only £750,000, £100,000 is a significant amount. An amount which one should be worried about. If it wasn’t for that rip-off the Find Madeleine fund would now have £850,000.

An amount that one would expect the allegedly hindered party would be REALLY interested in knowing what happened to it and do all to see if they could recover any.

Nope. Just silence. Did you say £100,000? Oh please, we have so many other important things to worry about... We did say we were worried, didn’t we? Please look at our worried faces behind these smiles.

The reason for this nonchalant silence is simple. This allegation has, in our opinion, as much truth as all the Sun has ever reported about the Maddie case since 2007: nothing.

It has simply the objective to glue to the public’s eye the word FRAUD to the Find Madeleine fund.

Why else the need to say “there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Kate or Gerry”? Whoever suggested that? Why then the need to clarify something that wasn’t raised in the first place?

Aren’t we taken back to the Narrative of Negligence? When they kept shouting how not negligent they had not been to make sure we noticed that they, very conveniently, were supposed to have been negligent?

So, it seems someone is making a serious effort to stick the word FRAUD to the Find Madeleine fund’s forehead.

Well If that’s the case all we can then do is help them out doing that.

And we will use hard fact to do so. We will use what reality provides us as we think it provides us with enough evidence to show how much the fraudulent Find Madeleine fund is indeed fraudulent.

And what hard fact is that? It’s the GoFund through which we helped support Mr Amaral’s legal fees.

We all watched in rightful wonder and delighted amazement the way people gave to it while it was open.

In the 6 months it existed it reached more than double of its set objective of £25,000. 2,814 donations adding up to £52,900. Very impressive. Emotional even.

The GoFund fund was opened on April 29 and because those responsible for it thought it had reached fully its objectives – in fact as we said, it doubled them – announced its closure on October 28. It ran for a total of 182 days.

All fund raising campaigns have 3 phases.

The initial phase, when the passion of contributors is shown by the very quick rhythm of incoming funds. This causes an impression and helps augment the contributions. Contributors giving encourage a bigger number of other contributors to do same. This is the stage in which the greatest efforts to publicise it are made. It’s the most impressive stage.

The plateau phase, when the initial enthusiasm passes and only those truly passionate and committed continue to give. Publicity is understandably scarcer and sparser with time. The rhythm of money received decreases significantly until it reaches a stabilised level. However, this level continues to diminish slowly but steadily with time usually trickling down to virtually nothing, or even nothing in prolonged campaigns. It’s the trickling stage.

When the trickling becomes nothing then this phase is also the final phase of a campaign.

The final phase, happens only when there’s a set deadline which interrupts the flux of contributions. It’s then the very last efforts are made and the publicity returns. Contributions do make a come back  but not in the same amount or enthusiasm as in the initial phase but certainly in greater quantities than received during the plateau phase.

The GoFund went through all these 3 phases. The Find Madeleine fund is in the plateau phase and has been like in that stage for the last 7 years. All this time in that stage in which the level of contributions slowly but steadily diminish.

The GoFund, because it lasted such a short time – not criticising, simply observing – even during the plateau phase, received daily significant amounts of money all the time it was possible to contribute to it.

We will consider the end result £52,900 and the number of days it was active, 182, and come to a daily amount the GoFund received daily: £291.

If it had run only for 1 month, according to this simplistic reasoning, it would have raised £8.730. For a year, £106,215.

By coincidence, at exactly the same time a McCann fund raising campaign also took place, “Kate’s 500 Mile Cycle Challenge”.

It started on May 1 and its last contribution was on July 31. This tells us it went on for 91 days and it raised £11,029. A daily amount of £121.

Using the same reasoning as above, if it had run for 1 month, it would have raised £3,630. For a year, £44,165.

Both these fund raising campaigns help prove how fraudulent the Find Madeleine fund appears to be.

(table from Aletheia's footsteps for Madeleine McCann)

It has been reported that the Find Madeleine fund had the following income yearly (from April 1 to March 31) during its plateau or trickling stage (still ongoing):

April 2008 to March 2009 – £650,766

April 2009 to March 2010 – £233,472

April 2010 to March 2011 – £177,635

April 2011 to March 2012 – £856,542 (this year, the revenue from book is to be included)

April 2012 to March 2013 – £70,573

April 2013 to March 2014 – £421,522

This means, and continuing to use our reasoning, that:

April 2008 to March 2009 – a daily amount of £1,783, a month: £53,488;

April 2009 to March 2010 – a daily amount of £640, a month: £19,189;

April 2010 to March 2011 – a daily amount of £487, a month: £14,600;

April 2011 to March 2012 – a daily amount of £2,347, a month: £70,401;

April 2012 to March 2013 – a daily amount of £193, a month: £5,801;

April 2013 to March 2014 – a daily amount of £1,155, a month: £34,646;

GoFund – a daily amount of £291, a month: £8,730;

Kate bike – a daily amount of £121, a month: £3,630.

Except from April 2012 to March 2013, all other years the Find Madeleine’s income was significantly better than the GoFund’s one. Very significantly better.

Impressively much, much better than of what we know was impressive.

Kate’s Cycle fund is overcome even by 2012/2013.

We all witnessed how passionately people gave to help Mr Amaral with his legal fees.

Knowing that, how realistic can the numbers for the Find Madeleine fund be?

They simply can’t. Not even for 2012/2013.

We very much doubt that after the dogs in July 2007, the general public continued to feel motivated to give to this fund any longer. The news about the dogs broke out in August 2007.

We are certain that with the parents’ possible guilt exposed the contributions stopped or trickled down to almost nothing. This in 2007, 8 years ago.

The numbers, incomprehensibly seem to say otherwise.

For example, they say that from April 2013 to March 2014 the Find Madeleine fund had an income of £421,522.

Was there then a campaign that would justify having people give monthly 4 times more than in the 6 months people gave enthusiastically to the GoFund? We don’t remember any to justify going from £70,573 in one year and then to £421,522 in the next.

Did Kate’s book selling numbers justify the fund’s revenue – £856,542 – to be 8 times better than GoFund’s? Hardly, we all witnessed the flop it was. The book was put on sale with a discount! Worse only was the Summers & Swan literary achievement with their book on Maddie.

Could these numbers be justified by the 618 donators who gave “enthusiastically” to Kate’s 500 Mile Cycle Challenge with equal enthusiasm here?

No, they couldn’t because the numbers of this fund show they gave much less enthusiastically than the ones who did to help Mr Amaral’s legal fees.

The numbers simply don’t add up in the Find Madeleine fund.

We urge that the rightful UK authorities go and REALLY audit this fund. We know the system says it is audited but on anything related to Maddie we have long stopped believing in the system.

The numbers shown, now having the GoFund ones to compare with, are simply not realistic.

To say the money came from commercial companies doesn’t make sense as these do not throw money away without having a return in publicity about their altruism.

As we said we believe the general public has long stopped wanting to go through the trouble of giving to the Find Madeleine fund.

Note that our reasoning benefits the Find Madeleine fund because the GoFund went on only for 6 months.

If it had gone on further in time, like the Find Madeleine fund has, we are certain that within a year the contributions would trickle down to a fraction of what we have considered as the daily and monthly values.

As we said, the Find Madeleine fund has been in the trickling stage for a long, long time. For the last 7 years in fact. A lot of bracelets would have to have been sold for the numbers to be correct.

Besides Gerry and Kate we haven’t seen any other human being wearing one since 2007.

Either we’re missing something or the numbers are lying. We opt for the latter.

If the numbers are lying then we are confronted with a fraud.

Authorities should verify the origins of the money received by this fund.

Because today, thanks to Mr Amaral’s legal help fund, we’re certain that it isn’t the general public who is responsible for the ridiculous numbers above.

However, one must not forget the good people from that same general public who donated to the Find Madeleine fund back in 2007.

These people were not moved by the sense of injustice that would move those who supported Mr Amaral’s legal fees 8 years later but by a genuine concern with the fate of a British toddler with a mark in her eye.

Remembering those beautiful, beautiful people, we would like to quote one of the Sun’s whistleblowers: “What made the fraud so disgusting was money came from people who shed tears over her disappearance and wanted to do their little bit.”

Poignant, poignant words. And true ones.

After all we just want what Kate McCann has said about the Find Madeleine fund in her book: “So the fund took the form of a not-for-profit, private limited company. It was set up with great care and due diligence by experts in the field. From the outset everyone agreed that, despite the costs involved, it must be run to the highest standards of transparency. There needed to be independent directors as well as family representatives, and people from a variety of professions joined my uncle Brian Kennedy and Gerry’s brother Johnny on the board. At the time, though, we had little idea how important these measures would prove to be in enabling us to withstand the massive scrutiny to which the fund would be subjected, especially when the tide turned against us” (underlining is ours).

They want attention drawn to the fraud of the fraudulent fund?

We’re here to help. Here we are doing our part.