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.
Tags: ishaq dar wealth, Penthouse pirates from pakistan, Sharif London Empire, Sharif’s family dirty money
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