Iceland: what ugly secrets are waiting to be exposed in the meltdown?

For months rumours of share-ramping, market manipulation, excessive loans to their owners and unusual transfers off-shore have been circling Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landsbanki, whose failure last October left 300,000 British customers unable to access their money.

It has now become clear that this was no ordinary crash. Iceland's special investigation into "suspicions of criminal activity" at the three banks is likely to stretch from Reykjavik to London, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands.

Eva Joly, the French-Norwegian MEP and fraud expert hired by Iceland and now working with the Serious Fraud Office, now believes it will be "the largest investigation in history of an economic and banking bank collapse".

Many of the banks' secrets are likely to be inextricably bound up with corporate Britain and the success of these investigations in tracing and recovering assets is likely to affect every UK household. (more)