Property and power London real estate market's key role in alleged corruption

By the time Bangladesh's student-led revolution finally toppled Sheikh Hasina, her security forces had already spilled the blood of hundreds of protesters.

- Rob Davies

Now, almost a year after the country's autocratic leader fled the former British colony into exile, an interim government is struggling to navigate bitter factional politics and economic turmoil.

Against that traumatic backdrop, a Knightsbridge townhouse in London, or a mansion on a private road in Surrey, seem worlds away. Yet luxury UK real estate is playing a central role in the drama.

Investigators in Dhaka have been sifting through allegations that powerful and politically connected figures under the previous regime exploited senior positions to loot state contracts and the banking system, channelling millions into UK property.

In May, the National Crime Agency (NCA) - sometimes called Britain's FBI - froze £90m of property belonging to members of the Rahman family, whose UK portfolio was revealed in a Guardian investigation last year.

Three weeks later, the NCA froze more than £170m of assets belonging to Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, a former land minister in the Hasina government who amassed a vast fortune during her tenure that included more than 300 UK properties, ranging from apartments to lavish townhouses.

Now, an investigation by the Guardian and the campaign group Transparency International has found that several Bangladeshis who are under scrutiny in Dhaka appear to have either sold, transferred or refinanced UK property since the revolution began.

The transactions raise questions about the freedom with which those under suspicion have continued to conduct business in London, as well as the due diligence performed by UK law firms and consultants which helped facilitate the transactions.

Leading figures in Bangladesh's interim government are now calling on Britain to err on the side of caution by freezing more UK property assets while the authorities in Dhaka complete their investigations.