Just £440 in the bank, a net worth of £153 and a single table in another firm’s offices.. the detective agency given £50,000 to find missing Corrie
Watchdog chief My blood ran cold when I saw what was happening
Missing RAF gunner Corrie McKeague’s family have been warned they could be wasting money on a private investigation firm.
McKenzie Intelligence Service (MIS) were called in by Corrie’s police officer mum Nicola Urquhart to help in the hunt for the 23-year- old, who went missing in September.
Nicola and brother Tony Wringe have raised over £50,000 in public donations on a crowd-funding site to pay the investigators.
Tony has described MIS as “an elite team of specialists” and they claim their typical clients are multinational blue ch ip organi sat ions and governments.
But insiders in the industry have raised concerns about them. And a Sunday Mail investigation has found they have just £ 440 in their bank account.
The net worth of the agency, founded by former soldier Forbes McKenzie in 2011, is £153. And accounts lodged with Companies House in March 2016 suggest they are owed £57,811.
Their registered HQ consists of one table inside the offices of another firm and McKenzie is their sole director following the resignation of their head of investigations Martin Anthony Cartwright last July.
Tony Imossi, the president of industry watchdog and campaign group The Association of British Investigators, said yesterday he has concerns about the hiring of the firm.
He claims the ABI contacted Nicola and offered to assist in the search for Dunfermline-born Corrie pro bono – free of charge – but got no reply.
Imossi said: “My blood ran cold when I saw what was happening.
“The appointment of MIS came as a surprise to the Association of British Investigators.
“There appears to be no fair or transparent selection process but more importantly, a complete absence of any form of due diligence on the company.
“A look at their website raises the question why such an agency, without any visible experience in the field of missing person inquiries and lacking transparency or financial probity, should have been selected to conduct the investigation – especially when the cost for the engagement is sourced from publicly-donated funds.
“At an early stage of the case, we messaged the mother of Corrie McKeague on Facebook, pointing out the wealth of expertise and experience within ABI.
“It’s not unprecedented for the ABI to assist in such cases pro bono and
certainly the offers to assist were made long before the campaign to raise crowdfunding emerged.
“We didn’t receive a response but we’ve continued to offer our help by promoting the Find Corrie Facebook page, adding his mother to the ABI page and publishing the family’s plea on our website.”
The private investigations industry is unregulated and membership to the ABI is voluntary.
The family’s decision to recruit MIS is reported to have upset officers from Suffolk Police, who have been leading the hunt for Corrie, who was last seen on a night out in Bury St Edmunds, near his base.
The force say they will not share any information with the agency.
The company have moved through temporary offices four times in the last six years, have no telephone number listed on their website and make no claims of having helped find missing persons.
Corrie’s uncle Tony, a former serviceman in the British Army Intelligence Corps, has said he knows people linked to MIS.
But Corrie’s father Martin McKeague, who is divorced from Nicola, has distanced himself from the hiring of MIS on Facebook.
He posted: “There have been a number of questions about recent fundraising activities and the crowdfunding effort on the Just Giving site, as well as the use of these funds for a private investigator, accommodation and a number of other things.
“I can tel l you unequivocal ly that the McKeague family have no involvement whatsoever in these activities, nor do we support or endorse them in any way. The McKeague family have seen first hand the extraordinary effort the trained professionals in the Suffolk Police, SULSAR and the RAF have demonstrated, and continue to demonstrate, in the search for my son. And we hope you feel the same way.
“Our hope is that you continue to raise questions, offer up your ideas and recommend that anyone who thinks they might have some clue to Corrie’s whereabouts contact the Suffolk police incident room on 01473 782019. That’s how we’ll bring Corrie home together.”
Nicola refused to discuss the hiring of MIS yesterday, saying: “I’m not interested in negative stories.”
The Sunday Mail attempted to visit McKenzie at MIS’s registered address in Aldgate, east London. At the address, he appears to have a modest set- up of a single desk within the of f ice of Nor thcott Globa l Solutions Ltd (NGN)
An employee from NGN, who prov ide responses to global emergencies, said McKenzie was rarely in the third-floor office.
He said: “Forbes isn’t in today. He tends to flitter around a bit and is rarely here.
“You can’t really predict when you will see him.
“He effectively has a single desk in the NGN office.
“The companies are completely separate.
“He does have other people working for him, but they are based all over the place and never come here.”
Forbes McKenzie failed to respond to requests for comment.