Prince Andrew in trouble over a million-pound payment. What happened?
Prince Andrew has found himself in yet another sticky situation, where he and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson have been named in a High Court case by Nebahat Isbilen, a Turkish millionaire and wife of a former leading politician.
Nebahat has accused her financial advisor Selman Turk, a Turkish businessman and a friend of Prince Andrew, of tricking her to pay about 7,50,000 pounds (ie. about Rs 7 crore) to Prince Andrew on the pretext of 'assistance' with her passport application. Further investigations have revealed that Selman Turk has also done some more fishy business with Prince Andrew under the disguise of winning an award at Andrew's Pitch@Palace entreprenurship set-up in 2019.
Here is the entire story.
SOME CONTEXT
Prince Andrew and shady controversies have been going hand in hand for some time now.
If you have never heard of Prince Andrew, he is the one who has been involved in a lot of messy situations. In 2005, he met Tarek Kaituni, a person convicted for smuggling guns and who is accused of introducing Andrew to Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
In 2009, Andrew's daughter Beatrice received a 20,000-pound diamond necklace which was accused to have been received from lobbying for a company.
Later, he was accused of child sex abuse along with his friend Jeffrey Epstein, which eventually led to him being stripped of all royal honors in 2022.
Thus, Prince Andrew's life has been going downhill for a while now.
In 2014, after being stripped of his role as a trade envoy, Prince Andrew started a project called Pitch@Palace, which was called a Dragons’ Den-style project, something that is like the modern-day Shark Tank. In Pitch@Palace, budding entrepreneurs would get a chance to woo successful businessmen with rapid-fire pitches.
Recent investigations that began after the Turkish millionaire filed the case have found more shocking evidence: Prince Andrew received money from the accused Selman Turk too.
In November 2019, Selman Turk, the same businessman (who is now accused in the case by Nebahat), had won the Pitch@Palace award (& a 1 million pound prize money) from Prince Andrew. The investigations are now raising questions around how the Pitch@Palace win was rigged and how Prince Andrew had received about 10 million pounds (ie. Rs 10 crore) from Selman Turk in 2019, 9 days after winning the award.
It seems like out of the 1 million pound amount (Rs 10 crore) that was received by Andrew, 7,50,000 pounds (or Rs 7.5 crore) was illegally transferred by Selman Turk from Nebahat Isbilen's account and 2,50,000 pounds (or Rs 2.5 crore) came from one of Turk's companies.
Also, Selman's startup that received the funding shut shop soon. Selman Turk has also been found to have been living in a multi-million-pound flat, which is owned by Queen Elizabeth herself.
THE RIGGED WIN
Selman Turk won the 'People’s Choice' award for his business Heyman AI, which was supposed to be a digital bank for millennials, but which eventually went bust.
After the win, some entreprenuers inquired with a senior member of the royal household to check if the system was rigged, since Heyman's win did not make sense to a lot of entreprenuers.
- Firstly, the live pitch for the product was not that great, as Turk forgot some words and was cut off by the trumpets in the end before he could finish.
- Second, he won by a large margin as he received more than 10,000 votes, while some participants received close to hundred votes. Some suspected that Turk had used bots, which are autonomous internet programs, to boost his votes.
- Third, their concept seemed bizarre as they were pitching for something for which they did not hold a licence.
WHAT HAVE INVESTIGATIONS SHOWN?
1. Since the legal proceedings began, it has come to knowledge that Turk first met Andrew between May and June 2019 at Windsor Castle – about six months before the Pitch@Palace event. He also met Andrew at least twice, after the Pitch@Palace event, including at a dinner with potential investors at Turk’s apartment in South Kensington on December 5, 2019, and in February 2020 at Frogmore House. Sarah Ferguson, ex-wife of Prince Andrews, received payments of at least 2,25,000 pounds from Turk via a company called Alphabet Capital.
2. Turk has admitted in court that he held meetings with Andrew in September 2019, two months before the Pitch@Palace event. But apparently, did not instruct Nebahat Isbilen to pay Andrew 7,50,000 pounds. Though Isbilen had paid 7,50,000 pounds, which was eventually returned by Prince Andrew since the claim, Isbilen is suing Turk for about 38 million pounds.
3. Isbilen has mentioned in court that when she paid the amount of 7,50,000 pounds, she was told by Turk that the same was to assist her with her UK passport. But Turk had sent a mail to her bank Hampden & Co, where he had mentioned that the payment from Isbilen's bank of this nature was a gift to Princess Beatrice for her wedding, since they were close.
4. Isbilen had given effective control of funds of $87.5 million (£ 66.7 million) to Turk and that he “dishonestly and systematically” abused her trust since she had limited ability to understand English and required help to move her assets out of Turkey. She claims that he has dishonestly mismanaged her funds.
This has raised new questions for Prince Andrew: Were he and his advisers aware that the payment was linked to Turk, and what was the money for?
Prince Andrew is not accused of any wrongdoing yet, but the tide seems to be turning every day.