Housing tycoon’s Venice hideaway is raided in Home REIT fraud probe

A foul-mouthed property kingpin who compared his negotiation tactics to those of a rapist has had his apartment in Italy raided in a fraud investigation into the collapse of £850 million property fund Home REIT, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The home, owned by Christopher Downing, who sold vast amounts of housing to the landlord for the homeless before it collapsed in scandal, was searched by Italian financial police, the Guardia Di Finanza (GDF), a fortnight ago.

Officers spent five hours at the property in a converted ex-convent on the Venetian lagoon, seizing laptops and files, eyewitnesses said. No arrests were made.

The operation coincided with raids and arrests by the Serious Fraud Office in the UK in a bribery and fraud investigation into past management of Home REIT.

The SFO has not named any individuals in connection with its investigation.

Downing was a central figure in the Home REIT crisis, having sold it much of its property portfolio via his firm Karla. It formed part of a 40-year career in which Downing cultivated a global reputation for ruthlessness.

He bought the secluded Italian address, now said to be worth €500,000 (£430,000), in 2020. Locals say he is a regular presence there throughout the year.

The whitewashed property, with landscaped gardens and a shared swimming pool, has spectacular views over the Venice lagoon.

Describing the raid, a neighbour said: ‘The GDF arrived by boat and spent about five hours going over the property. They took away computers and boxes of files.’

Guidebooks describe the area as ‘appreciated by those who love to discover the less crowded and most characteristic places of the Venetian lagoon’. A bar owner recalled how Downing was spotted at the famous Da Celeste restaurant, a magnet for Hollywood stars during the annual

Venice Film Festival. He added: ‘We know when he’s in town because you see him driving his collection of cars.

‘He has an antique Rolls-Royce, a Porsche and a Maserati. Last summer I saw him with an old Mercedes-Benz two-seater.’

The GDF were let in through the main doors by the property’s administrator, who asked not to be named. He said: ‘I got a call asking me to meet the officers.

‘I let them in and did a few jobs around the building. When I left a few hours later, they were still there as I saw their boat moored on the pier outside the property.’

The GDF declined to provide ‘any official information on this matter’. Italian Chamber of Commerce records show Downing to be director of a firm called Dolce Visa – a play on Dolce Vita – which helps obtain visas for wealthy foreigners. According to Karla’s website in 1992 he moved to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and has spent time in Pakistan, South Africa and Myanmar.

Downing, describing his negotiating strategy for buying property, once said: ‘We try to steal them… We buy at one price, this is a negotiated price based on how cruel I can be… It can stretch from fair bid, to brutal, to rapist.’

He also said the profit he and his business partners made went towards supporting an ‘outrageous lifestyle’ and warned those working with him to ‘never f*** up, never ever f*** up’.

In 2023, Downing said there had been ‘many false and deliberately misleading accusations’ against him. He said ‘like many others’ he sold properties to Home REIT at Local Housing Allowance rates and that the properties had been ‘valued by Knight Frank as instructed by Home REIT’.

A member of his staff said Downing did not wish to comment on the raid.