ULAANBAATAR — Located just steps from downtown London landmarks like Harrods department store and Hyde Park, The Knightsbridge Apartments, a luxury residential building in the eponymous upscale central London neighborhood, advertises itself as “private homes enjoying levels of service and facilities to rival any five-star hotel.”
Boasting white limestone floors, hardwood timber features, a pool, spa and a feng shui garden, two-bedroom flats sell for between $4 million and $8 million, according to London estate agents. Residents, meanwhile, like their privacy. Many of the residences are owned by corporations aimed at camouflaging the ultimate owner.
Keeping such secrets is getting harder, however, and earlier in October the Pandora Papers, a massive data leak on offshore finance published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, revealed the existence of two flats purchased in 2006 by a company operating on behalf of Batbold Sukhbaatar, a former prime minister of Mongolia.
They appear to be the same flats in The Knightsbridge Apartments that were the subject of an injunction in November 2020 by a U.K. high court pending legal proceedings in Mongolia against Batbold. One flat was sold in an apparent arms-length transaction in 2017, while in 2018 the remaining flat was transferred to a corporation controlled by individuals.
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