Left to right: Shamima Belgum, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana. Pic: Metropolitan Police

A man who was arrested for allegedly helping three schoolgirls cross into Syria to join Isis was also working as a courier to transfer money to jihadis according to reports in Turkish media.

As East London Lines reported last week, Turkish officials had arrested a Syrian national who was reportedly working as a spy in the US-led coalition.

The Milliyet newspaper reported that the man, who was arrested after being identified in new video footage released on Friday, was a dentist called Doctor Mehmen Resid.

They reported that he told Turkish police during questioning that he had withdrawn large amounts of cash from a Western Union branch and delivered it to Syrian jewellers in Sanliurfa, where a middleman would collect the money and transfer it to jihadi groups across the border.

According to the newspaper, the man told investigating officers that his brother, who lived in Raqqa, a city seized by Isis last year, had also been involved in delivering the money to militants.

The report did not reveal who sent the money, only that it came from abroad.

Kadiza Sultana, 16, Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, both 15, who left London on a flight to Istanbul on February 17, are thought to have taken a bus to Sanliurfa and crossed into Syria.

The girls are three of four pupils from the Bethnal Green Academy in east London who disappeared from their homes and travelled to parts of Syria controlled by Islamic State.

Another pupil, Sharmeena Begum, also 15, is believed to have flown out of the UK in early December 2014 to Istanbul and then travelled by road across Turkey to the Syrian border.

In a joint statement released on Sunday, the families of the missing girls said they felt the girls’ loss “more acutely” on Mother’s Day.

They said: “With respect to the disappearance of our children we have been disappointed by the handling of this matter by the school, Met police and the local authority, all of whom we feel failed to act appropriately and pass on vital information to us or indeed between each other.”

“Had we been made aware of circumstances sooner, we ourselves could have taken measures to stop the girls from leaving the UK.”

In an interview with Buzzfeed, Prime Minister David Cameron said that young people attempting to travel to Syria to join Isis are “deeply misguided.”