A Dutch property trader has been arrested in Dubai at the request of the Dutch authorities, the Telegraaf says on Friday.

Roger Lips is wanted for questioning about bankruptcy fraud, the paper says. He handed his passport into the Dubai authorities and was later released.

The public prosecution department declined to confirm his identity but said officials are now working on ‘the next steps’. They would not say if this included extradition proceedings.

Lips was declared bankrupt in 2013 with debts of over €100m. A number of his companies also went bust. The official receivers say he failed to cooperate with the bankruptcy and that he hid many of his assets from creditors.

He fled the country with his wife and children over a year ago after the receivers threatened to have him held in contempt of court for failing to cooperate.

SNS bank

Lips had a loan of €370m from SNS bank which meant, in effect, the bank had lent 10% of its shareholders’  equity to a single client, the Financieele Dagblad says. SNS got into extreme financial difficulty because of its loans to property dealers and had to be nationalised.

Lips’ property empire includes around 1,000 homes, The Wall shopping centre on the A2 motorway near Utrecht and the Brinkmanpassage shopping centre in Haarlem, which both flopped.