Control Risk Group: Kenneth Farrow and Micheal Keenan, two senior investigators

Control Risk Group: Kenneth Farrow and Micheal Keenan, two senior investigators of CRG arrived on Faro at May 13th 2007

Thursday, 10 May 2018

By Paulo Reis
BRITISH CIVILIAN CONTRACTORS IN IRAQControl Risk Group, a private security company specialized in acting in in the most dangerous environments, have been at Praia da Luz. Mr. Farrow is the ex-head of the Economic Crime Unit in the City of London Police and Mr. Keenan an ex-Superintendent from the Metropolitan Police with specialist fraud and investigative experience and they arrived in Faro on the British Airways flight from Gatwick, that morning. CRG is a global risk and strategic consulting firm specializing in political, security and integrity risk. It has around has 3,000 employees, with a presence in more than 100 countries and cities including; Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, Baghdad, Beijing, Berlin, Bogotá, Copenhagen, Delhi, Dubai, Hong Kong, Houston, Islamabad, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Kabul, Lagos, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Moscow, Mumbai, New York, Paris, São Paulo, Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Washington, DC.
The company, based out of London, was founded in 1975 as a subsidiary of the Hogg Robinson insurance and travel group, becoming the first company to provide advice to clients involved in kidnap situations. CRG began with the hiring of three SAS officers: Maj. David Walker, Arish Turle, and Simon Adams-Dale. In a web site of British Expertise International, they are mentioned of having worked in dozens of countries, like Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia Herzegovina, Iran, Iraq, Portugal and Ukraine, among many others.They met with Kate and Gerry McCann, at Praia da Luz, and Jane Tanner referred to them as “some of the people that Kate and Gerry brought in”. The company was apparently retained as part of a “crisis management” team by Bell Pottinger on behalf of Mark Warner. Some CRG specialist were probably in Luz before 13th May 2007.The McCann had been before, in London, with a team od Control Risk Group Operatives, in a meeting organized by the wealthy British businessman Brian Kennedy. After their presence was made public, by the British Media, Portuguese authorities warned that is was a crime, in Portugal, if private investigators started to do their own investigation about a crime commited in the country. Most of Control Risk Group staff has some previous experience in the intelligence field (MI5, MI6, CIA) and operatives are former special forces soldiers, coming from the British SAS, USA Navy Seals and Rangers. The company is ranked in 12th place among the 20 most powerful security contractors companies, in the world-A leading charity War on Want say, in a story published in 2016, that Britain was at the center of a growing global mercenary industry. The chairman of Control Risks at that time – named in the report alongside G4S and Olive Group – was Crawford Gillies, a director with Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) and Standard Life. He is a former chairman of both Scottish Enterprise and the Confederation of British Industry and is on the board of Control Risks alongside an ex-CIA agent and a former SAS officer. Regarding Control Risks, War on Want said the firm operate in war zones across the world and that most of their staff are ex-members of the military and intelligence services.

The report says: “The company’s Middle East operations are overseen by Andreas Carleton-Smith, an ex-SAS officer, while its Iraq operations are headed by David Amos, an ex-officer in the British Army, who now leads more than 1200 people with 340 armored vehicles across the country. “Eddie Everett, formerly of the special forces, manages the company’s global client services, while Jim Brooks is CEO of its American arm. Brooks is ex-CIA, and worked for the agency supporting its worldwide paramilitary operations, and as a Navy SEAL adviser to Latin American security services.” Some details of their activity in Iraq were revealed in a document from the “UK Foreign and Commonwealth Freedom of Information Office”. “The Independent”, on a story published in 2007, listed CRG as part of the Britain's private army in Iraq. It is, at least, strange, that a so powerful organization, with capacity to act in war raged countries like Iraq, was hired, apparently by Bell Pottinger, to come to Praia da Luz, to investigate what could be considered a “minor” case of the disappearance a child. But this only one of the many mysteries that still surround the Madeleine McCann Case.