The secret tropical estate to which John and Anne Darwin planned to disappear has been tracked down by The Times.

Bought six months ago it lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Panama Canal and was discovered at the end of a complex paper trail designed to conceal the identities of its new owners. The site, located on the shores of a freshwater lake, is popular with adventure canoeists and seems like the ultimate hideaway in a country renowned for what may politely be described as financial discretion.

While police in Cleveland were granted a further 36 hours yesterday to question the former prison officer who was believed drowned five years ago, The Times can reveal that he and his “widow” were planning to develop an eco-tourism resort. They had promised to bring jobs and prosperity to a backward region of this Central American republic.

The collapse of the fantasy world of the Darwins, however, has dealt a heavy blow to the village of Escobal, where their grandiose hotel scheme is known by all simply as “el Proyecto” — the Project.

John and Anne Darwin set their plan in motion to invest half a million US dollars in property in Panama in April this year, via a company called Jaguar Properties Corporation SA, inside which they could disappear.

They spent $90,000 (£44,390) on a two-bedroom apartment in a middle-class district of Panama City — $56,000 of which was for the building and the rest for fixtures and fittings — and a further $389,711 on the purchase of “Finca no. 1031” also known as Finca Escobal, a 194-hectare plot of virgin forest on the banks of Lake Gatún.

The property company that helped the Darwins to find the estate told The Times that it was fully co-operating with the British authorities in the investigation into the money trail.

The rugged “finca” consists of forest that is home to tapirs and toucans, situated on the outskirts of the village of Escobal in Colón, a province of Panama that Sir Francis Drake called “the treasure trove of the world”. Another English traveller was less flattering. “In all the world there is not, perhaps, now concentrated in a single spot so much swindling and villainy,” James Froude wrote in 1886.

It seems possible that Mr Darwin, 57, was planning to offer customers the ultimate kayaking holiday.

The purchase went through on June 11, at the same time that the Darwins paid for the two-bedroom apartment in Panama City.

In the rutted, single street running through Escobal, where dogs laid motionless in the heat and chickens pecked at weeds, locals nodded as they recognised the Darwins in the now famous photograph that exposed their deception. But they also produced a newer picture of Mr Darwin, taken in July, inspecting piles of rubbish tipped illegally on his land. A letter of complaint to Jaime Luna, the municipal chief of Escobal, is signed “Anne Darwin, President and legal representative Jaguar Properties Corporation”.

Mrs Darwin, 55, warned the local chief that fly-tipping was endangering her company’s investment and the viability of its tourism project, which was going to “provide a great economic impulse” to Escobal. She would soon be bringing tourists to the area “and we do not want to present a bad image that might affect our investment and consequently the economic benefits to the region”.

Police are now awaiting her return to Britain and confirmed that she would face arrest once she landed.

Leticia Escobar, the secretary to the town council of Escobal, said: “They told us they represented a consortium and had been looking all over Panama for the right location for their investment.

“They presented themselves as husband and wife, but now we’ve heard all about how he allegedly faked his death to get the insurance. We don’t know what’s going to happen to the land but I suppose the hotel will never be built now.”

Julio Nuñez, a municipal policeman who helped to secure the Darwins’ estate with a wire fence and signs warning off trespassers, showed The Times around the land, pointing out the spectacular lake and jungle views.

“They visited here twice after buying the land. They planned to build a cable car from the hotel through the trees down to the water, where you can kayak on the lake. They didn’t speak much Spanish but they did tell us they were married.”

Briseida Bracho, the town magistrate who registered the land purchase, said: “We were really happy they bought the land and with their plan to create the eco-tourism resort because it meant jobs for the town. But we didn’t know their circumstances, they didn’t say anything about that.

“I was shocked when I saw Anne’s face in the newspaper and read that her husband had disappeared.”

Manuel Cupas Fernandez, a respected lawyer and public notary, who was a prominent opponent of Panama´s General Noriega, confirmed that in April he was given a special power of attorney to purchase the city flat and the land by Jaguar Properties Corporation SA. “I met Anne and she mentioned that she was a widow and wanted to buy some properties, that she was planning to move here. She said that she had to sell some properties in England. She always said that she was a widow and I also met John, but she introduced him to me as a friend of hers. She said that she was planning to move to Escobal.”

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