TORY peer Michelle Mone has been sunning herself at a six-bedroom villa with her husband in the Algarve bought three months after their homes were raided by police investigating a £200 million PPE deal.
Mone and Doug Barrowman added the £7m property with a pool and gym to their portfolio last July through an offshore firm, it has been revealed by the Mirror.
Nearly two years before, the couple allegedly received £65m in profits from PPE Medpro Ltd.
Mone took a leave of absence from the House of Lords amid media scrutiny of the allegations.
The firm – set up by their business associate Antony Page - is being sued for more than £130m by the Tory UK Government over gowns it claims were not suitable for NHS staff to use, but the couple and PPE Medpro deny any wrongdoing.
PPE Medpro accused the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) of a “cynical attempt to recover money from suppliers” who acted in good faith.
Mone was pictured this week walking her dogs while Barrowman worked on his golf swing at the exclusive Quinta do Lago resort – billed as “Europe’s finest golf, leisure and lifestyle resort”.
After flying to Portugal on a £6m private jet, the pair indulged in meals at restaurants a short drive from their villa.
The couple also own multi-million homes in London and the Isle of Man which were raided last April by officers from the National Crime Agency who are probing “suspected criminal offences committed in the procurement of PPE contracts by PPE Medpro".
When Mone was approached by the Mirror in Portugal, she said: “Why are you doing this?
“Have you read the defence?”
Asked whether she owned the villa, which is registered to a secretive company in the US tax haven of Delaware, she said: “Nothing is owned by me. It is all owned by my husband.”
It has been reported that bank accounts and trusts linked to Barrowman received £65m in profits from the PPE deal in September 2020.
It is also alleged that Mone and her family benefitted from £29m in profits made by PPE Medpro as a result of the government contracts.
Last month, Mone’s yacht was “renamed” the “pandemic profiteer” in a daring political protest after campaign group Led By Donkeys found the vessel in a marina just south of Barcelona.
According to reports, the yacht – called Lady M – was put up for sale for £10.25m in September last year amid the National Crime Agency investigation.
