Sutton Council agreed an £18m deal to buy property in Reading from an investment company whose majority shareholder is at the heart of global corruption allegations.

The authority's chief executive, council leader and deputy leader all signed off on the purchase of a retail park 60 miles away from the borough before pulling the plug at a late stage.

They had agreed on May 6 to use council money to buy Reading Link Retail Park from Lumina Real Estate Capital (LREC), a property investor with close ties to Unaoil, an energy consultancy under investigation by law enforcement and anti-fraud agencies in multiple countries.

Council bosses paid a private law firm at least £35,000 to conduct a two-month due diligence audit before agreeing the transaction through the Jersey-based Reading Link (Jersey) Ltd, set up by a Lumina-managed fund registered in offshore tax haven the Cayman Islands.

Lumina's majority shareholder is Monaco-based businessman Ata Ahsani, who runs Unaoil with sons Cyrus and Saman, and the investment company's director is his third son Sassan.

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Unaoil founder and owner Ata Ahsani is Lumina's majority shareholder

In March Unaoil was thrust into a storm of media reports alleging corruption after internal emails were leaked to the Huffington Post and Australian news group Fairfax Media.

Following those reports, authorities in Monaco raided and searched Unaoil’s offices and interviewed company executives as part of what the principality’s government described as a “huge corruption case”.

There are no allegations or evidence of wrongdoing by Lumina, which also owns Times Square in Sutton High Street, and the council initially decided to press ahead with the purchase of the retail park.

The council pulled out of the Lumina deal on May 13 but refused to discuss its reasons for doing so or to arrange interviews with any of figures involved when asked by the Sutton Guardian.

A spokesman said: “Sutton Council’s strategy and resources committee has agreed unanimously that the council should raise revenue for the public purse by investing in viable commercial properties as they can offer a much greater rate of return compared to other types of investment.

"We will only invest if there is a sound business case and so far we have been looking into over 50 potential investments but only gone ahead with two.

"We have been looking into purchasing Reading Link Retail Park but we have decided not to go ahead."

However, documents seen by the Sutton Guardian show council leader Ruth Dombey, chief executive Niall Bolger and deputy leader Simon Wales initially signed off on the deal following the end of the due diligence process.

Lumina’s close ties to a company at the centre of a bribery allegations could have proved deeply embarrassing for the authority had the deal gone ahead.

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Unaoil provides "industrial solutions" to the energy sector, according to its website, including providing specialist staff for the Adriatic LNG offshore natural gas terminal

Tim Crowley, leader of the council's Conservative opposition group, said: “I have grave concerns about the council's decision to agree to the deal.

"I say this because I managed to discover issues of potential serious concern surrounding the deal in just a few minutes using Google.

"The fact remains that at May 6, the council was happy with the situation and told me they were 100 per cent ready to exchange."

Lumina this week confirmed it had been in talks with Sutton Council. But the UK-based property investment company insisted it had never been a business partner of Unaoil.

A spokesman said: ""We have a series of clients from across the international spectrum to whom we give real estate advice to.

"Unaoil is not and has never been a partner of LREC nor has it been involved with any of the operational activities of LREC.”

But Unaoil was listed on Lumina's website as a "consistent partner" as of June 2008. The relevant page of website has since been removed and the entire website has been down since Wednesday last week, after the Sutton Guardian approached the company about the links.

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Unaoil was listed as a 'consistent partner' of Lumina in 2008

According to Lumina's latest Companies House returns, filed on September 25 last year, Unaoil founder Ata Ahsani owns 62 per cent of the property investment firm's shares.

His son Sassan, who is not involved in running Unaoil, owns 27 per cent per cent of Lumina.

Unaoil's commercial director Saman Ahsani also sat on Lumina’s advisory board, according to the company’s website.

Authorities in Monaco raided Unaoil's headquarters and the homes of its executives, who they also interviewed, on March 29 and 30 following "an urgent request for international judicial assistance in a criminal case" from the UK's Serious Fraud Office.

In a statement released on March 31, the principality's government said: "The searches and interviews were carried out in the presence of British officials as part of a huge corruption case with international ramifications, implicating a number of foreign companies operating in the oil industry.

"Aspects of the inquiry will now be used by the British authorities in the course of their investigations."

The UK's Serious Fraud Office told the Sutton Guardian it could “neither confirm nor deny interest in Unaoil or companies linked to Unaoil”.

The raids followed a six-month joint investigation by Fairfax Media and Huffington Post, prompted by a huge cache of leaked internal emails and documents.

Unaoil has denied allegations of corruption and said the reports were "littered with sensationalist distortions and misleading correlations".

In a statement on May 16, the company said it had "been the victim of a four-month extortion attempt by criminals," adding: "The extortionists demanded huge sums of money from us in exchange for stolen emails and threatened that if we didn’t pay they would go to the media."

Lumina bought Reading Link Retail Park, which opened in the1970s and currently includes shops such as Home Bargains and Poundworld, for £13.2m in 2013.

Cllr Crowley said: "We have to tread very carefully when investing outside of the borough.

“Before the whole issue of transparency and who would be the ultimate beneficiary of the £18 million came to light, I was concerned that this deal would send out the wrong signals to those who may have been thinking of investing in Sutton."

He added: “We have council officers and lead members standing up beating the drum via the vehicle of Opportunity Sutton when secretly they are investing £18 million in another borough.

“It was a crass and irresponsible thing to do and one which could have seriously damaged the borough’s reputation.”

The council has bought two commercial properties - a shop in Sutton High Street and offices in Wallington - as part of its bid to raise revenue through investments.