How former prime minister of Pakistan and his sons have ploughed millions into London’s swankiest addresses to amass a vast property empire
LONDON(DNA) -The address could not be swankier. Avenfield House lies in the heart of Mayfair, near the top of Park Lane, with a view of Hyde Park.
It is just the kind of property that Russian oligarchs have pounced upon in recent years.
But while it is owned by a family of foreign plutocrats with powerful political connections, they are no Putin cronies.
For Avenfield is where Pakistan’s super-rich former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, has lived when in London since 1993, knocking four luxury flats together to make a single mansion, now worth at least £7 million.
He shares it with his sons, Hassan and Hussain, his daughter and political heir-apparent Maryam and her husband Muhammad Safdar.
For the past four months, all five of them have been on trial in Pakistan accused of money-laundering.
The Avenfield flats, the prosecutors say, were bought with dirty money. They form just a fraction of a London property empire owned by Sharif’s family.
And prosecutors believe the money used to bankroll it was dishonestly acquired by Nawaz Sharif during his three terms as prime minister.
Last year, when Sharif was still PM, the courts barred him from holding public office for the rest of his life, on grounds he failed to declare a salary from a Dubai company when he last ran for office in 2013.
The first of three money-laundering verdicts, which relates to the Avenfield flats, is expected this week.
If found guilty, the family’s assets will be confiscated and they face huge fines and jail sentences of up to 14 years.
Sharif and his family deny any wrongdoing, and none has yet been convicted of any offence. Their supporters claim the charges against them are politically motivated.
The family are also accused of using dirty money to buy at least 21 UK properties on top of the Avenfield flats, most at equally grand Central London locations, in Mayfair, Chelsea and Belgravia.
The total value of the properties is estimated at at least £32 million.
The family has made huge profits from other sites which have not figured in court – such as the swankiest address of all, at One Hyde Park Place, which Nawaz Sharif’s son Hassan sold for £43 million.
Untangling the web of the Sharifs’ British real estate portfolio is not easy. The properties are registered via a bewildering network of companies, trusts and bank accounts.
According to the prosecutors, the Sharifs have for years moved their money in and out of Britain, Switzerland, the Middle East and the British Virgin Islands – to conceal its dishonest provenance.
It is not illegal to own property through an offshore company.
However, under Pakistan’s national accountability laws – first enacted in 1997 when Nawaz Sharif was prime minister – it is down to the Sharifs to prove their assets were acquired legitimately.
This, the prosecutors claim, they have failed to do. In court last week, Nawaz’s Sharif’s defence counsel claimed the prosecution had failed to establish his client was the beneficial owner of the flats or that he ran the offshore companies.
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