A close friend of ousted Bangladesh leader Sheikh Hasina was denied access to Malta's citizenship scheme because they were accused in media reports of “money laundering, corruption, fraud and bribery”, leaked documents show.
Shaheen Siddique, the aunt of UK anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq, was turned over in 2013 by Henley & Partners, who then had exclusive rights to manage Malta's investment process.
An immigration consultant rejected Shaheen's application for a Maltese passport, noting his links to a company accused by Bangladeshi media of “illegally acquiring valuable government land in Dhaka”, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.
Shaheen is the wife of Tarique Ahmed Siddique, an army officer who served as Sheikh Hasina's security adviser. Bangladeshi authorities froze the bank accounts of Tarique and Shaheen in October last year after student-led protests ended Sheikh Hasina's 16-year rule.
The passport application documents contain details of how Tarique's family, now amid concerns about the kleptocracy under Sheikh Hasina's rule, managed their affairs.
Henley's decision refers to allegations from 2012 that a company called Prochhaya, headed by Shaheen, took valuable land in Dhaka. Shaheen listed his role in Prochhaya in his 2013 visa application.
Critics of Sheikh Hasina's government say Tarique, who was Sheikh Hasina's military adviser from 2009 until the fall of the government last year, used the country's security forces to seize land in Prochhaya. The company in 2016 sold the land.
The documents show that Shaheen made two applications for a Maltese passport in 2013 and 2015. The second was a joint application with his London daughter Bushra, who is a first cousin of Tulip Siddiq, the UK City minister responsible for tackling money laundering. Bushra was the director of Prochhaya, according to a 2011 filing.
According to the joint application documents in March 2015, Maltese citizenship will cost 650,000 Euros for Shaheen and 25,000 for Bushra; in addition Henley will take a 70,000 fee.
As part of that request, Shaheen provided a statement from a dollar bank account in Kuala Lumpur showing a balance of $2,760,409 as proof of funds. The money was deposited in the last two months in 11 transactions. The origin is not specified in the document.
Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, said Bangladesh's currency laws 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 his address at the time as a second-floor flat in a large Gothic building above St Pancras station in central London.
The place was a few minutes' walk from his cousin Tulip's King's Cross flat, which was given to Tulip by a British Bangladeshi businessman for free in 2004. FT has been reported previously.
The first passport application in 2013, by Shaheen alone, was rejected by Henley. The internal email says this is because published news stories suggest he has “associations with money laundering, corruption, fraud and bribery” related to Prochhaya.
In the next passport application, made jointly with his daughter two years later, Shaheen does not mention Prochhaya. Instead, he lists his company as “The Art Press Pvt Ltd” in Chattogram, southern Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, a Henley employee said in an internal email that “although no malicious information has been identified”, the Maltese authorities want more information about the company.
In response, one employee said that Art Press “is a business started by Mrs. Shaheen Siddique grandfather in 1926. . . The main business of the Company at that time was 'printing'. . . The position of Mrs. Shaheen in the company is the Managing Director (since 2013).
In the last of the leaked documents from late 2015, Shaheen is on a list of clients titled “Requests Deleted and/or Rejected”. Malta's official gazette confirms that Shaheen and Bushra did not receive a passport.
Bushra stayed in the UK after his studies. Shortly after graduating from the University of London, he joined investment bank JPMorgan before leaving to become a “lifestyle, fashion and travel” influencer in 2018.
In a YouTube interview last year, Bushra said he decided to quit his investment banking job after “struggling” for some time. She resigned, she said, even though her father was proud that he was able to say that his daughter was working for a reputable American bank.
“I come from a special position. . . I was married so I had a husband. “I didn't have to worry about having a roof over my head if I had someone to pay my rent,” he said.
In 2018, Bushra bought a five-bedroom house in Golders Green, North London, for £1.9mn jointly with her husband. Land Registry files show that the property has no mortgage on it.
“I had money that I had saved and if the money that I had saved ran out, I knew that my parents were there. . . ,” Bushra added on YouTube.
Bushra Siddique and Shaheen Siddique did not respond to a request for comment. Henley confirmed that they had not received the passports. Tarique Ahmed Siddique, whose arrest warrant was issued this week by the International Criminal Court in Bangladesh in connection with this. enforced disappearance, He could not immediately be reached for comment.