Kevin Halligen's private investigation company was hired by the family in 2008 to help in the search for McCann.
"Kate and Gerry McCann were initially impressed by Dublin-born Halligen, believing he 'was in a different league' to other private investigators. He boasted of employing ex-FBI, CIA and Special forces officers while offering undercover surveillance and intelligence gathering in Portugal. The detective even said he could provide satellite imagery and details of telephone traffic from the night Madeleine disappeared."
He was eventually fired from the investigation when they determined he was scamming them, and convicted of an unrelated fraud scheme a few years later. I just stumbled on this article, and his "blood-soaked body" was found in 2018. It mentions that the satellite images "allegedly turned out to have been from Google Earth".
Seems like there might be more to his investigation than what is claimed. An episode of 'American Greed' called 'The Spy Who Scammed Me' [2015] is about Halligen, and mentions the claim of satellite photos. I have a hunch they were far more detailed than what comes from Google Earth.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5265977/Maddie-McCann-detective-conman-Kevin-Halligen-dead.html