McCanns hire crack team of ex-FBI agents to find Madeleine

Kate and Gerry McCann have hired a team of crack U.S detectives to lead the hunt for their missing daughter Madeleine, it has emerged.

The unnamed US firm is said to have been offered a £500,000 six-month contract by the Find Madeleine Fun to help spearhead the search.

A friend of the McCanns said: 'The hunt for Madeleine is becoming more and more international and it was felt that a truly international firm was now needed to lead the inquiry.

"These really are the big boys. They are absolutely the best, but they are extremely secretive and cloak-and-dagger about what they do.

'Since their appointment, Metodo has very much taken a back seat and they are now concentrating primarily in Portugal and Spain and across the Straits of Gibraltar into north Africa, where they have their main contacts.

'The American agency is pretty much handling everything else.'

The secretive firm is said to employ ex-FBI, CIA and U.S special forces, according to the Daily Mirror.

The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell, said: 'Kate and Gerry made it clear from the outset they would leave no stone unturned in finding Madeleine and that means employing the very best people in any given field.

'It is correct that an international firm of investigators have been appointed.

'But I am unable to say anything at all about them because of the covert nature of their work and the need for secrecy, not only in looking for Madeleine, but also in relation to previous operations.'

The McCanns now have detectives working around the world at a reported cost of £166,000 a month.

Among the possible sightings they are following up, apparently ignored by Portuguese police, is one by a British yachtsman on the Caribbean island of Margarita last May.

The appointment of the U.S firm comes after it was revealed that a suspected sighting of Madeleine in Brussels was ruled out by police.

A blonde girl had been seen with a woman in a hijab at the KBC bank in the Belgium capital and the McCanns had been treating the sighting as a priority.

However their hopes were dashed when a man came forward and confirmed that the girl was his daughter out with her nanny.