LONDON - Britain’s fraud investigation agency has launched a hunt to identify the millions of pounds in money and assets secretly stashed in the country by deposed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and his family, a media report said Sunday.
Mubarak’s family fortune is thought to be at least 1.5 billion pounds, and is thought to be held in British and Swiss banks and tied up in property in London, New York and Los Angeles, according to The Sunday Times. The Serious Fraud Office is now investigating the assets of Mubarak’s family in the UK. One of the assets being investigated is a private equity company in Belgravia, west London which has been linked to Mubarak’s sons, Gamal and Alaa, the report said. Quoting an expert on Mubarak’s regime, the report said moves were underway in London to file court petitions to freeze family assets. Like the Swiss, the British are concerned that the assets be identified in case the funds came from illicit deals. Responding to reports that assets were secretly held in London by the family of Mubarak and that of Zine Ben Ali, the deposed Tunisian president, SFO director Richard Alderman told the newspaper: “The public would expect us to be looking for some of this money if we became aware of it, and to try to repatriate it for the benefit of the people of these countries“. Mubarak’s wife, Suzanne, is the daughter of a Welsh nurse who married an Egyptian doctor. The family members are regular visitors to Britain. In fact, Gamal, 47, once lived and worked in London and is said to regard Britain as his second home. In 1996 he set up an investment vehicle, Medinvest Associates, which is based in Sloane Street, central London. Medinvest then set up Horus, Egypt’s first offshore private equity fund. The $54 million (34 million pounds) fund was aimed to invest in Egyptian public sector organisations that were being privatised by the Mubarak senior. Mubarak was forced to step down as President of the African country after a mass uprising swept the streets demanding an end to his 30-year-rule. He left Cairo on February 11 for his residence in the Red Sea resort of Sharm—al—Sheikh but his whereabouts are not exactly known now.
