By Danyal Hussain For Mailonline
Published: 19:31 BST, 21 May 2019 | Updated: 00:25 BST, 22 May 2019
65
View
comments
A member of Syria's ruling family and the niece of President Bashar al-Assad received £150,000 from relatives while studying in London and has been forced to give up the contents of her UK bank account.
Investigators found that Aniseh Chawkat, 22, who rented a flat in the capital for more than £60,000 per year, benefited from 56 cash deposits into her Barclays account in 2017 and 2018.
The National Crime Agency found that the payments were made at branches of the bank across England, getting around EU sanctions to restrict the availability of funds from the Syrian regime.
Chawkat's father Assef Shawkat was Syrian deputy Minister of Defence between 2011 and his death in 2012,
