In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved detective stories, Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Watson lived at 221B Baker Street.
But today, the central London residence is owned by Dariga Nazarbayeva, a daughter of Kazakhstan’s former longtime president Nursultan Nazarbayev, The Times reported Tuesday.
While the Sherlock Holmes Museum lists its address as 221B Baker Street, the original 221B Baker Street is actually located in a nearby block of flats and its true ownership had long been a mystery worthy of Holmes’ deductive skills. A 2018 Quartz investigation into documents leaked through the Panama Papers said Nazarbayeva and her son owned a stretch of Baker Street.
In addition to 221B, Nazarbayeva also owns the properties between 215 and 237 Baker Street, worth a combined 140 million pounds, or $185 million, according to leaked legal correspondence seen by British daily The Times.
An investigation by Global Witness in 2015 had identified the properties’ owner as Nazarbayeva’s ex-husband Rakhat Aliyev.
Aliyev was placed under criminal investigation in Kazakhstan in 2008 following a disagreement with then-president Nazarbayev. He moved to Austria in exile and was later arrested and imprisoned in Vienna where he died under mysterious circumstances in 2015.
According to leaked legal emails seen by The Times, the properties are now jointly owned by Nazarbayeva, 57, and her son Nurali Aliyev, 35.
The Times said that Land Registry records identified the property’s owner as Farmont Baker Street, a firm owned by a company registered in the U.A.E. But because British property laws don’t require offshore companies to reveal the names of their proprietors, the ownership of the famous Baker Street house had remained a mystery for years.
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