Billions of dollars in Egyptian land deals over the past 20 years are coming under scrutiny by Egypt’s revolutionaries, amid a worldwide hunt for assets stashed away by former president Hosni Mubarak.

A real-estate boom which built satellite cities around Cairo and developed the Red Sea coast created vast fortunes for politically connected businessmen, many of whom allegedly received very generous terms for land which was allocated without competitive?tenders.

Now many of these deals are likely to be re-examined by whatever political leadership takes Mr Mubarak’s place. Egyptian activists and lawyers said they hoped to revive dormant corruption cases and launch new ones.

Negad El-Borai, a lawyer specialising in anti-graft lawsuits, said: “We hope that because of these new circumstances, the public prosecutor’s office will work hard on these cases.”

In recent days corruption investigations have focused on several former cabinet officials, including the former prime minister, former interior minister, former ministers of tourism, housing, and trade and industry, who have been all banned from travelling outside Egypt, according to state TV news on Saturday.

Switzerland’s government has ordered its banks to freeze assets of the Mubarak family, while the UK’s serious fraud office is looking into allegations that profits of corruption may have been stashed in London banks. Sources close to the former regime say that the figures being bandied about by Egyptian demonstrators, convinced that the Mubarak family had accumulated $40bn- $70bn of wealth, are wildly exaggerated. “That figure is higher than the King of Saudi Arabia and the emir of Kuwait combined,” said the head of one Egyptian bank. He said $2bn-3bn was “a bit more realistic”.

Lucrative land deals are thought to be at the centre of this wealth. Jan Pawel Hasman, real estate analyst at EFG-Hermes, the Egyptian investment bank, said “We’re entering a phase where depending on how populist the new political climate is, we may see more attacks on the businessmen who were the drivers of the real estate boom,” he said. “Much of the wealth in the country over the last 20 years has been made on land.”

Many of the biggest land deals in the country were made as direct allocations by the government without competitive tenders, and for low prices.

“Land was sold for as little as $1 per square metre,” said Hamdi Fakhrany, a Cairo lawyer who last year launched several lawsuits against the government, claiming that laws had been violated in the awarding of vast tracts of land.

One of the projects named in the lawsuits is Madinaty, an area to the east of Cairo developed by Talaat Moustafa Group, which also developed Al Rehab, another east Cairo enclave. In both cases much of the land was awarded without competitive tender and payment was in kind – the government agency, which sold the land, was paid in finished plots.

Another lawsuit filed by Mr Fakhrany claims that former housing minister Ahmed al-Maghrabi owns a stake in Palm Hills Developments, a real estate developer, which was awarded several lucrative development contracts by the same ministry. While he was a minister, he was credited with reforming land allocation procedures and introducing competitive auctions. Mr Maghrabi could not be reached for comment; Palm Hills did not respond to requests by e-mail and telephone. He was last week subject to a travel ban outside Egypt.

Political ties are an important ingredient of business success in Egypt. One big land developer, SODIC Real Estate Development, has the father-in-law of Mr Mubarak’s son Ala’a as chairman of its board.

Hisham Kassem, a publisher and analyst, said the Mubarak regime used land as a tool not just to favour its allies, but to control a private sector that it feared could become too politically influential if it was independent of government.

But the developers say that the huge margins they have made on paper – the difference between buying land for $1-$3 a square meter and selling it for $100 – need to be judged against the massive risks they take and the huge investments they are making.

“Yes, these margins are perceived as high, but how many years of investment did it take to achieve these margins?” said Mohamed Kamel, chief executive of Egypt Resort Company, which in 1995 bought 42m sq m of development land on the Red Sea for about $3 a square metre, according to analysts.

Mr Kamel did not disagree with these figures, but pointed out: “You are trying to attract investors to very remote areas which are complete desert.”

As the government struggles to build credibility with a disillusioned population, the land developers offer a tempting political target. But businessmen are warning that pressing too hard could provoke capital flight and an economic crisis on top of a political one.

“They need to strike the right balance between due process and a witch hunt,” said one hedge fund manager who asked not to be named. “If they start a witch hunt, then people will take their money and go elsewhere.”