Community News Desk: Britain’s FBI is investigating disgraced ex-City minister Tulip Siddiq after travelling to Dhaka for a secret summit with Bangladeshi anti-corruption investigators, the Daily Mail reported on Saturday (February 1).
Detectives from the National Crime Agency (NCA) were told at last month’s meeting that Bangladeshi authorities have amassed new evidence against the Labour MP as they investigate her over a controversial nuclear power plant deal.
The revelation raises the prospect of the British authorities looking into Ms Siddiq’s bank accounts, email records and even summoning her for interview.
The ex-Treasury minister and four family members – including her mother Sheikh Rehana Siddiq – are being probed over claims that they embezzled £3.9 billion from the Rooppur nuclear power plant, which was built by the Russian state-owned company Rosatom with a 90 per cent loan from the Kremlin.
Ms Siddiq was pictured alongside Vladimir Putin at the signing of the deal in 2013.
Official sources in Bangladesh said the NCA team offered to investigate Ms Siddiq in Britain to ‘bring about a prosecution’ by the Bangladeshi authorities through an international agreement.
Last night, sources in Bangladesh said the NCA may also be trying to gather evidence to bring a prosecution against the Hampstead and Highgate MP in the UK.
British nationals who are found to have received money abroad as bribes can be prosecuted in the UK under the Bribery Act 2010, and jailed for up to ten years. Bangladeshi officials, who spoke anonymously, said the NCA requested the meeting, set up by the British High Commission in Dhaka.
It is the second visit the agency has made to Bangladesh since Ms Siddiq’s aunt, Sheikh Hasina Wazed, 77, was ousted as prime minister in August after weeks of violent protests.
