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Ousted Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina was barred from a Maltese citizenship scheme because of media-reported “money laundering, corruption, fraud and bribery” charges against her, according to leaked documents.
Shaheen Siddiq, aunt of UK Anti-Corruption Minister Tulip Siddiq, was returned by Henley & Partners in 2013 and had the exclusive right to manage the Maltese Citizenship by Investment programme.
The immigration consultant rejected Shaheen’s application for a Maltese passport, citing his ties to a company accused by Bangladeshi media of “illegally acquiring valuable government land in (Bangladeshi’s capital) Dhaka,” according to documents seen by the Financial Times.
Shaheen is married to Tarique Ahmed Siddique, an army officer who served as Sheikh Hasina’s security adviser. Bangladeshi authorities froze Tarike’s 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 Tarike’s family, now under threat of kleptocracy under Sheikh Hasina’s regime, prepared the case.
Henley’s decision refers to allegations dating back to 2012 that Prochaya, a Shaheen-led company, had acquired valuable land in Dhaka. Shaheen listed her role in Prochaya in her 2013 passport application.
Critics of Sheikh Hasina’s government alleged that Tarike, who was Sheikh Hasina’s military adviser from 2009 until the fall of the government, was holding the country’s security forces in favor of Prochaya. The company sold the land in 2016.
The documents show Shaheen made two applications for a Maltese passport in 2013 and 2015. The second is a joint application filed by her daughter Bushra, who lives in London and is the first cousin of Tulip Siddiq, the British City’s minister responsible for combating illegal finance. Bushra was a director of Prochaya, according to a document filed in 2011.
According to joint application documents in March 2015, Maltese citizenship costs 650,000 euros for Shaheen and 25,000 euros for Bushra. Henley will also take a €70,000 fee.
As part of that application, Shaheen provided a statement as proof of funds of a $2,760,409 balance from a dollar-denominated bank account in Kuala Lumpur. The money was deposited in 11 transactions in the last two months. The origin is not specified in the document.
Iftekharuzaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, said currency laws in Bangladesh prohibit people from taking more than $12,000 out of the country in a calendar year.
Bushra, who was studying in the City of London on a student visa at the time, gave her address as a second-floor apartment in a grand Gothic building high above St. Pancras Station in London.
The property is a few minutes’ walk from its cousin, Tulip King’s Cross Flats, where the tulips were given for free by a British Bangladeshi businessman in 2004. FT previously reported.
The first passport application in 2013, by Shaheen alone, was rejected by Henley. The internal e-mail said this because published news reports linked to Prochaia “suggest that she is involved in money laundering, corruption, embezzlement and bribery.”
In the next passport application, which was made jointly with her son two years later, Shahin did not say anything about Prochaya. Instead, she lists her company as “The Art Press Pvt Ltd” in Chattogram, southern Bangladesh.
At this point, a Henley employee said in an internal email that although “no negative information has been identified,” Maltese authorities need more information about the company.
In response, another employee told Art Press, “The business was started in 1926 by Mrs. Shaheen Siddique’s grandfather. . . The main business of the company at that time was ‘printing’. . . Ms Shaheen’s position in the company is Managing Director (since 2013).
In the year In the final documents released in late 2015, Shaheen is listed as a client with “cancelled and/or rejected applications.” Malta’s official newspaper confirmed that neither Shahi nor Bushra had passports.
Bushra stayed in England after her studies. Shortly after graduating from University College London, she joined investment bank JPMorgan before leaving in 2018 to become a “lifestyle, fashion and travel” influencer.
In an interview on YouTube last year, Bushra said she decided to quit her job at an investment bank after “struggling” for a while. Her father said he was proud to say his daughter was working at a prestigious American bank, but resigned.
“I came from a higher place . . . I was married then, so I have a husband. If I had someone to cover the rent, I didn’t have to worry about a roof over my head,” she says.
In the year In 2018, Bushra jointly bought a five-bedroom house in Golders Green, North London, for £1.9mn with her husband. Land registration documents show that the property has no mortgage on it.
“I had savings and I knew my parents would be there if I ran out of savings. . . ” Bushra added on YouTube.
Bushra Siddique and Shaheen Siddique did not respond to requests for comment. Henley confirmed that passports were not received. Ahmed Siddique, who was arrested this week by the International Criminal Court in Bangladesh. forced disappearance, He could not immediately be reached for comment.
