A close ally of ousted Bangladesh leader Sheikh Hasina has been denied access to the Maltese citizenship program because he has been accused in media reports of money laundering, corruption, fraud and bribery, leaked documents show.
Shaheen Siddiq, the aunt of UK anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq, was dismissed in 2013 by Henley & Partners, which then had exclusive rights to manage Malta's citizenship-by-investment programme.
The immigration consulting firm rejected Shaheen's application for a Maltese passport, citing its links to a company accused by Bangladeshi media of “illegally acquiring valuable government land in (Bangladesh capital) Dhaka,” according to documents seen by the Financial Times.
Shaheen is the wife of Tariq Ahmed Siddiq, an army officer who served as security advisor to Sheikh Hasina. Bangladeshi authorities froze Tariq and Shaheen's bank accounts in October last year after student-led protests ended Sheikh Hasina's 16-year rule.
The passport application documents contain details of how Tariq's family, now at the center of concerns about government corruption under Sheikh Hasina's rule, will arrange their affairs.
Henley's decision refers to allegations from 2012 that a company called Prochaya, headed by Shaheen, seized valuable land in Dhaka. Shaheen listed her role as Prochhaya on her 2013 passport application.
Critics of Sheikh Hasina's government have alleged that Tariq, who was Sheikh Hasina's military advisor from 2009 until the government's fall last year, used the country's security forces to occupy Burchaya land. The company sold the land in 2016.
The documents show that Shaheen submitted two applications for a Maltese passport in 2013 and 2015. The second request was a joint request with her daughter, Bushra, who resides in London, and is the cousin of Tulip Siddiq, the UK City Minister responsible for tackling illicit finance. Bushra was a director of Prochhaya, according to a 2011 filing.
According to the joint application documents from March 2015, Maltese citizenship would cost €650,000 for Shaheen and €25,000 for Bushra; In addition, Henley will receive a fee of €70,000.
As part of this application, Shaheen submitted a statement from a dollar-denominated bank account in Kuala Lumpur showing a balance of $2,760,409 as proof of funds. During the past two months, cash was deposited in 11 transactions. The origin is not specified in the document.
Iftikharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, said Bangladesh's currency rules prevent people from taking more than $12,000 out of the country in a calendar year.
Bushra, who was studying in London on a student visa, gave her address at the time as a second-floor flat in the grand Gothic building that rises above St Pancras station in central London.
This property was a few minutes' walk from her cousin Tulip's Kings Cross flat, which Tulip had acquired from a British Bangladeshi businessman for free in 2004. The Financial Times previously reported.
The first application for a passport in 2013, by Shaheen alone, was immediately rejected by Henley. An internal email said this was because published news stories suggested she had a “link to money laundering, corruption, fraud and bribery” in relation to Prochaya.
In the next passport application, which she submitted with her daughter two years later, she did not mention Shahin Prochaya. Instead, she incorporated her company as “The Art Press Pvt Ltd” in Chattogram, southern Bangladesh.
This time, a Henley employee said in an internal email that “although no negative information has been identified,” the Maltese authorities need more information about the company.
In response, another employee said that Art Press “is a business started by Ms. Shaheen Siddiq’s grandfather in 1926.” . The company's main business at that time was 'printing'. . . Ms. Shaheen's position in the company is Managing Director (since 2013).
In the latest leaked documents from late 2015, Shaheen was listed on a customer list under the heading “Canceled and/or rejected orders.” The Official Gazette of Malta confirms that Shaheen and Bushra did not obtain a passport.
Bushra stayed in the UK after her studies. Shortly after graduating from University College London, she joined investment bank JP Morgan before leaving to become a 'lifestyle, fashion and travel' influencer in 2018.
In an interview on YouTube last year, Bushra said that she decided to leave her job at the investment bank after “struggling” for a while. She said she resigned, despite her father's pride in being able to say that his daughter works in a respectable American bank.
“I came from a privileged position… I was already married at the time, so I had a husband. I didn't have to worry about having a roof over my head if I had someone there to cover the rent,” she said.
In 2018, Bushra bought a five-bedroom house in Golders Green, north London, for £1.9 million jointly with her husband. Land Registry filings show that the property has no mortgage against it.
“I had savings, and if my savings ran out, I knew my parents would be there…,” Bushra added on YouTube.
Bushra Siddiq and Shaheen Siddiq did not respond to a request for comment. Henley confirmed that they had not received the passports. Tariq Ahmed Siddiq, for whom the International Crimes Court in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant this week in connection with enforced disappearance, He could not be immediately reached for comment.
