Buckingham Palace has issued a statement hoping to clarify the nature of a meeting between King Charles and his younger brother, Prince Andrew.
Andrew, 65, has long been embroiled in controversy, most recently due to his ties to alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo. Tengbo, known by his codename H6, is said to be involved in the Duke of York’s Eurasia Fund, which is intended to raise money for renewable energy projects in Africa.
Yang had denied any wrongdoing and was barred from entering the U.K. in December 2024.
“While His Majesty met with the Duke and his adviser to hear outline proposals for independent funding over the past year, the individual known as H6 was not mentioned at any time or in any way as part of these discussions,” the statement read.
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The statement came after written testimony by Dominic Hampshire, a former senior aide to Andrew, alleged that the Prince and King Charles discussed the Eurasia Fund during their meeting.
Though Andrew may have mentioned the fund in meetings with his brother, Hello! reports that “the fund wasn’t discussed in detail and neither the monarch or his advisers gave their approval.”
Andrew, for his part, said in December that he had cut off all contact with Yang, and that while dealing with him, “nothing of a sensitive nature [was] ever discussed.” He added that the two met through official channels and he was “unable to comment further on matters relating to national security.”
Buckingham Palace’s statement comes days after another scandal in Andrew’s life took an unexpected turn. Virginia Giuffre, the woman who accused Andrew of sexual misconduct amid the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, is in the hospital recovering from a bus accident. She took to Instagram on Sunday, March 30, where she said she had only four days to live.
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“This year has been the worst start to a new year, but I won’t bore anyone with the details but I think it important to note that when a school bus driver comes at you driving 110km as we were slowing for a turn that no matter what your car is made of it might as well be a tin can,” she captioned a post of herself in what appeared to be a hospital bed with visible injuries.
Local police confirmed there was, in fact, a “minor crash” involving a school bus and car on March 24 but that no injuries were reported.
Giuffre, 41, was reportedly in court days before the crash for allegedly breaching a family violence restraining order. The Daily Mail reported that Giuffre appeared in court in Perth, Australia, near where the accident took place.