Tchenguiz Brothers Arrested

Flamboyant businessmen Robert and Vincent Tchenguiz arrested following early morning office raids in London! 

Robert and Vincent Tchenguiz arrested in Iceland probe - 9 March 2011

Vincent Tchenguiz is one of London's most high profile business people

Property tycoons Robert and Vincent Tchenguiz have been arrested as part of an investigation into the collapse of Icelandic bank Kaupthing, sources have confirmed.

The Tchenguiz's offices in central London were raided this morning.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said nine unnamed men, aged between 42 and 54, had been arrested in London and Reykjavik.

Robert Tchenguiz borrowed £1.25bn from the failed bank to finance deals.

He used the funds, borrowed months before the collapse, to buy stakes in companies including Sainsbury's and pubs company Mitchells and Butlers.

The Tchenguiz brothers are known as much for their socialising as their business deals.

Robert Tchenguiz dated the model Caprice, while Vincent has often spoken of his high-rolling in casinos and how he won £1m gambling on the outcome of the Euro 2004 football tournament.

Along with the wealth came the trappings, palatial homes and yachts, which have featured along with the brothers, in magazines and newspapers.

Funds search

During the course of the operation in London, which involved 135 police officers and SFO investigators, seven men were arrested and taken to police stations for interview, the SFO said.

Two men aged 42 and 43 were also arrested in Reykjavik.

The Serious Fraud Office has been working with Icelandic authorities for more than a year, looking at why substantial funds flooded out of the bank in the days before it failed.

The SFO also said when it launched the investigation that it would study whether the the bank had misled savers to try to encourage deposits into its high-interest Kaupthing Edge accounts in the UK.

Kaupthing, once Iceland's biggest bank, collapsed along with the bulk of Icelandic banks during the height of the banking crisis in 2008.

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