As Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson spend a desultory Christmas alone at the Royal Lodge, while more than 40 members of the Royal Family celebrate 125 miles away in Sandringham, they may feel a twinge of regret over the associations of the Duke.
The only real surprise, however, is that Andrew’s network of shady operators – and indeed convicted criminals – hasn’t seen him excluded from the family festivities so far.
The news that a close adviser to Prince Andrew, Yang Tengbo, is allegedly a Chinese spy has once again reminded the world that probably the most naive and greedy member of the Royal Family has an unfortunate assortment of friends and business contacts.
Tengbo, who denies the allegations, has known the duke for more than a decade and headed the Chinese operations of Pitch@Palace, a Dragons Den initiative to find the entrepreneurs of the future.
He was tasked with finding Chinese investors for the Eurasia Fund, a company of the prince run by an old friend, Dominic Hampshire.
Andrew has always wanted to enter the lucrative Chinese market and during his tenure as the taxpayer-funded Special Representative for Trade and Investment (2001-2011), he made some useful contacts and used his travels to help various companies. associates, especially David Rowland.
Rowland and his son, Jonathan, who described themselves as Andrew’s financial advisers, accompanied him on several of his British trading trips, including the Middle East and China.
Before a visit to China in 2010, Andrew sent the proposed schedule to Jonathan asking, “What events do you need to be at?” The Rowlands were even able to add people they wanted to meet to the program. The trip cost the British taxpayer more than £30,000.
The Rowlands, who are said to have been passed secret diplomatic cables by Andrew and able to meet the British ambassador, were able to locate potential clients thanks to the taxpayer-funded trade mission for their own private bank.
On a trip to Saudi Arabia, Andrew lobbied the king of Bahrain on behalf of the Rowlands, who were planning to start a banking operation in the Middle East, an operation in which emails show Andrew must have had a stake.
Andrew is known to have had a 40% stake in a British Virgin Islands-based company called Inverness Asset Management, aimed at super-rich investors, linked to the Rowlands.
In short, the duke took advantage of his position as Britain’s trade envoy to act as a facilitator for the Rowlands, potentially for his own financial benefit.
In return, Rowland paid £1. 5 million obtained by Andrew, he settled some of Sarah Ferguson’s debts, provided Andrew with the use of his private jet, and was invited to the wedding of Balmoral and Princess Eugenie.
Rowland has been in the news recently after attempting to become Kim Jong Un’s private banker (the key fixer was Dr Johnny Hon, who has long bankrolled the Duchess of York), and was fined £10 million. after being involved in a global plot to ruin the oil-rich state of Qatar and then losing his banking license was revoked.
Rowland also accompanied Andrew on at least one trip to see Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, a visit which Buckingham Palace went to great lengths to conceal.
Presumably, it was on one of these trips that he met the dictator’s son-in-law, Saif Al Islam Gaddafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by a Libyan court in 2015.
The Duke and Duchess of York will not be going to Sandringham for Christmas and will not be attending the royal Christmas lunch.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell are perhaps the best known of Andrew’s dubious group of friends. The pedophile Epstein, 66, committed suicide in prison in 2019 while Maxwell remains locked up at FCI Tallahassee, Florida, while serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking.
A selfie taken by Selman Turk with Tarek Kaituni during a visit to what appears to be Frogmore House, the royal residence in Windsor Great Park, in February 2020.
Jane Andrews (left), who was the Duchess of York’s dresser for nine years until 1997, was convicted of murdering businessman Tom Cressman at his home in Fulham, London. Canadian fashion executive Peter Nygard (right) was convicted of four counts of sexual assault in 2023
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity
Prior to this, Andrew hosted him at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.
Also accompanying Andrew on the trip to Libya was Tarek Kaituni, a convicted arms smuggler, who boasted to undercover reporters that he could arrange for Andrew to appear at the opening of a new golf resort in Libya in exchange for a fee.
Kaituni was invited to Princess Beatrice’s 21st birthday party in 2009, where she gave her a diamond pendant worth £20,000, and attended Princess Eugenie’s wedding.
Kaituni is linked to Selman Turk, whose company won a People’s Choice Award at Pitch@Palace and who was accused of stealing more than £40 million from Nebahat Evyap Isbilen, 77, after she hired him to help transfer her assets outside Turkey.
The High Court case revealed that Turk had paid Andrew, his ex-wife and daughter Eugenie £1.4 million. The Yorks were unable to explain why they had received the payment beyond suggestions that some of it had been a wedding gift and to fund a birthday party.
Andrew continually confused his personal financial interests with his role as a business ambassador. It was well known that during trading voyages he attempted to raid his old home, Sunninghill, which the Queen had given him as a wedding present.
It was eventually bought by Timur Kulibayev, the billionaire son-in-law of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, who was the only bidder.
Another close friend was Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, a country where elections were rigged, journalists imprisoned, opposition politicians tortured, and Aliyev, the son of a former KGB major general, changed the constitution so he could be re-elected unlimitedly and make his wife vice president.
Nursultan Nazarbayev (left) was president of Kazakhstan for almost 30 years (left). His son-in-law Timur Kulibayev (right) bought Andrew’s former home, Sunninghill.
Financier David Rowland (left) was fined £10 million after being involved in a global plot to ruin the oil-rich state of Qatar and later lost his banking licence. Suspected Chinese spy Yang Tenbo (right) headed the Chinese operations of Pitch@Palace, a Dragons Den initiative to find the entrepreneurs of the future.
The Rowlands accompanied Andrew to the country twice in 2008, leading to a $5 million investment in a fund controlled by the Rowlands.
Indeed, his ties to dubious regimes were constantly a source of controversy during his role as trade envoy.
Andrew hosted a business lunch for the ousted son-in-law of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the deposed Tunisian dictator, just three months before the regime was toppled.
The Prince, acting in his capacity as Britain’s special trade representative, is said to have received Sakher el-Materi, then 29, at a lunch at Buckingham Palace, attended by dozens of British business executives who were waiting. forge lucrative business opportunities in Tunisia.
After the fall of the regime, el-Materi fled the country to escape investigation for money laundering and sought political asylum in the Seychelles.
A court in Tunisia found him guilty in absentia and sentenced him to 16 years in prison and fined him for corruption and real estate fraud.
Most of the controversies surrounding Andrew to date have revolved around his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and claims made by Virginia Giuffre.
Epstein, 66, committed suicide in prison in 2019 while Maxwell remains locked up at FCI Tallahassee in Florida while serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking.
However, she is by no means the only one of Andrew’s friends languishing behind bars.
In 2023, Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard, 83, was convicted of four counts of sexual assault, after a court found he used his “status” to attack five women between the ages of 16 and 28 at a series of incidents that occurred from the late 1980s to 2005.
Nygard is serving an 11-year sentence and still faces separate charges of sexual assault and sex trafficking.
The prince and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson stayed at Nygard Cay, near Nassau, with their daughters Beatrice and Eugenie in 2000, after the designer reached out-of-court settlements with three employees who accused him of sexual harassment.
However, the real scandal has been how he took advantage of his royal position for personal financial gain. That story is just emerging and still has a long way to go.
Titled: The Controversial Lives of the Duke and Duchess of York, by Andrew Lownie, will be published next year