The aunt of the British anti-corruption minister denied a Maltese passport due to fear of corruption

A close ally of ousted Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina has been denied access to a Maltese citizenship program after media reports accused them of “money laundering, corruption, fraud and bribery”, according to leaked documents.

Shaheen Siddique, the aunt of the UK’s anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq, was turned down in 2013 by Henley & Partners, which then had exclusive rights to manage Malta’s citizenship-by-investment scheme.

The immigration office rejected Shaheen’s application for a Maltese passport, citing her association with a company accused by Bangladeshi media of “illegally acquiring valuable government land in [the Bangladesh capital] 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 last October after student-led protests ended Sheikh Hasina’s 16-year rule.

The passport application documents detail how Tarique’s family, now at the center of concerns over kleptocracy under Sheikh Hasina’s rule, managed their affairs.

Henley’s ruling relates to allegations in 2012 that Prochhaya, a company managed by Shaheen, had seized valuable land in Dhaka. Shaheen cited her role in Prochhaya in her 2013 passport application.

Critics of Sheikh Hasina’s government have alleged that Tarique, who was Sheikh Hasina’s military adviser from 2009 until the fall of the government last year, used state security forces to seize land for Prochhaya. In 2016, the company 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 her London-based daughter Bushra, who is a first cousin of Tulip Siddiq, the British City minister responsible for fighting illicit finance. Bushra was a director of Prochhaya, according to a 2011 filing.

According to joint application documents in March 2015, Maltese citizenship would cost €650,000 for Shaheen and €25,000 for Bushra; in addition, Henley would take a fee of €70,000.

As part of that application, Shaheen submitted a statement from a dollar bank account in Kuala Lumpur showing a balance of $2,760,409 as proof of funds. Cash was deposited in the previous two months in 11 transactions. The document does not state the origin.

Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of Transparency International in Bangladesh, said currency rules in Bangladesh 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 flat on the second floor of a grand Gothic building towering over St Pancras station in central London.

This property was a few minutes’ walk from her cousin Tulip’s flat in King’s Cross, which was given to Tulip for free by a British Bangladeshi businessman in 2004. previously reported by the FT.

The first passport application in 2013, submitted by Shaheen alone, was rejected outright by Henley. An internal email said this was because published news suggested she was “connected to money laundering, corruption, fraud and bribery” related to Prochhay.

In the next passport application, which she submitted together with her daughter two years later, Shaheen does not mention Prochhaya. Instead, he lists his 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”, Maltese authorities need more information about the company.

In response, another employee said that Art Press “is a business started by Ms. Shaheen Siddique’s grandfather in 1926 . . . The company’s main business at that time was ‘printing’ . . . Ms. Shaheen’s position at the company is Director (as of 2013) .”

In the latest leaked document from late 2015, Shaheen is listed as a client under the heading “Applications Canceled and/or Rejected”. Malta’s official newspaper confirms that neither Shaheen nor Bushra have received a passport.

Bushra stayed in Great Britain after her studies. Shortly after graduating from the University of London, she joined investment bank JPMorgan before quitting to become a “lifestyle, fashion and travel” influencer in 2018.

In a YouTube interview last year, Bushra said she decided to quit her job at the investment bank after “struggling” for a while. She quit, she said, despite her father being proud to say his daughter was working at a respected American bank.

“I come from a privileged position. . . Actually, I was married then, so I had a husband. I didn’t have to worry about a roof over my head if I had someone who was there to cover the rent,” she said.

In 2018, Bushra and her husband bought a five-bedroom house in Golders Green, North London for £1.9 million. Land registry entries show that the property does not have a mortgage.

“I had savings and if my savings were to disappear, I knew my parents were there. . . ”, added Bushra on YouTube.

Bushra Siddique and Shaheen Siddique did not respond to a request for comment. Henley confirmed that they had not received their passports. Tarique Ahmed Siddique, for whom the Bangladesh International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant this week in connection with enforced disappearances, could not immediately be reached for comment.