Tulip Siddiq's £700k London flat part of £3.9bn money-laundering investigation

Yahoo

04-02-2025

A £700,000 London flat owned by Tulip Siddiq is being investigated as part of a money-laundering probe.
Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is examining whether the former City minister bought the London property using funds linked to one of the country's largest infrastructure projects.
Ms Siddiq, her aunt Sheikh Hasina, the former Bangladeshi prime minister, and other family members are being investigated over the alleged embezzlement of £3.9 billion connected to a Russian-funded nuclear power plant.
Ms Siddiq was forced to resign from the front bench last month after Sir Laurie Magnus, the UK Prime Minister's ethics adviser, found that she had inadvertently misled the public over the scandal.
The MP, whose brief as Treasury minister had included combating corruption, had referred herself after weeks of questions over her use of properties in London linked to her aunt's political party.
Hasina, 77, the longest-serving prime minister of Bangladesh, is now in India, having been ousted last August after violent protests.
During her tenure, opponents were attacked, arrested and secretly imprisoned as the regime carried out extrajudicial killings.
The former prime minister and her allies are also accused of looting billions from the country.
Bangladesh's ACC is investigating Ms Siddiq, Hasina and other members of their family for alleged embezzlement of £3.9 billion connected to a Russian-funded nuclear power plant.
In an update on its investigation, the ACC said that it had received allegations that Ms Siddiq had received a £700,000 luxury flat in London, allegedly purchased with misappropriated funds from Bangladesh's $12.65 billion (£10.1 billion) Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant.
Investigators claimed illicit funds had been funnelled through offshore bank accounts in Malaysia before being used to acquire high-value properties for members of Hasina's inner circle.
'After our secret investigations confirmed these allegations, we decided to conduct a public inquiry into it,' a top official at the ACC told The Telegraph.
'She [Ms Siddiq] has been implicated in allegations of corruption and financial misconduct. We received complaints that she was involved in money laundering and illicit financial transactions linked to her family members in Bangladesh,' the official said.
'Her name has surfaced in investigations concerning offshore bank accounts and property dealings suspected of being funded through illegal means,' he said.
The ACC said that Ms Siddiq had received a £700,000 flat, while other family members received a £650,000 flat and a £1.58 million property in north London.
Investigators claimed these transactions had been facilitated through international money-laundering operations, and authorities are now scrutinising their financial origins.
It is unclear whether the properties in question are the same as those examined by Sir Keir Starmer's ethics adviser.
However, Labour sources said a flat, gifted to Ms Siddiq by a businessman linked to her aunt and now worth £700,000, had been transferred to her in 2004 so could not be linked to the nuclear deal, signed in 2013.
A source close to Ms Siddiq said 'the timeline does not add up' and that Ms Siddiq had no overseas property or bank accounts. Sir Laurie has also said he found 'no suggestion of any unusual financial arrangements' involving the Awami League party or the state of Bangladesh.
The inquiry into Ms Siddiq is part of a wider corruption probe involving Hasina and her family.
The ACC has reported financial irregularities amounting to £4 billion within the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project, which is being constructed with Russian assistance.
Investigators have accused Hasina, her son, Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed Joy, and other close relations, including Ms Siddiq, of benefiting from misappropriated public funds.
In 2013, she posed for a photograph with Hasina alongside Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, at a meeting in Moscow.
The meeting saw Putin agree to bankroll the £10 billion Rooppur nuclear plant on the bank of the river Padma, about 100 miles north west of Dhaka.
The ACC alleges Ms Siddiq brokered the deal and helped her family embezzle some £3.9 billion pounds from the project.
The ACC has also launched multiple corruption investigations into other major infrastructure projects in Bangladesh, allegedly used to divert billions of dollars into offshore accounts.
A spokesman for Ms Siddiq said: 'Absolutely no evidence has been presented for these allegations. Tulip Siddiq has not been contacted on these matters and totally denies the claims.'
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