An English daily from the United Kingdom, The Daily Mail has revealed the vast extent of the Sharif family’s property empire in London. The properties owned by the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family amount to a mammoth £32 million as per the Daily Mail’s investigation.
The highly-valued Avenfield apartments are owned by various members of the Sharif family. The family has bought as many as four flats, combining them into one luxury mansion in Park Lane, London. It is these flats (valued at £7 million at least) which are at the heart of money laundering charges against the Sharif family.
Reports say that the dethroned PM has been living in this mansion since 1993, sharing it with his daughter Maryam Nawaz, wife Kulsum Nawaz and sons Hassan and Hussain Nawaz.
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Not just this, more money (whose sources are yet to be accounted for) was used by the Sharif family to buy 21 other properties in premier locations including Mayfair, Belgravia and Chelsea, the newspaper reported. In addition, £43 million worth property was sold by Hasan Nawaz, making huge profits from the sale.
While its legal to own property using an offshore company, however, the Sharif family has yet to prove how the properties were bought. They face charges that they brought the flats with laundered funds gathered during the time when Nawaz Sharif was in power.
Below is a list of some of the properties:
The Daily Mail’s investigative report highlighted the difficulty in gathering information regarding Sharif family’s vast empire, saying:
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.
Talking about the money laundering, the daily reported:
We have identified UK property worth £4.4 billion that has been bought by those representing a high money laundering risk. This is likely to be the tip of the iceberg.
Despite having promised to assist in the investigations, the British authorities including Scotland Yard not just refrained from helping the Pakistani investigators but hindered the probe.
From not granting visas to refusing to share bank account details and other information, the British government hasn’t been cooperative at all.
Sources involved in the probe say that this may have been a political decision on part of the authorities.
“We felt it was a political decision. Nawaz’s party was still in power and the British government didn’t want to jeopardize its relationship with Pakistan.”
Images via Daily Mail
