Oligarch gave payments to help with restoration of historic house
Prince Charles’s Scottish-based charity is embroiled in a Russian money-laundering scandal.
Dumfries House in Ayrshire, which is run by the prince’s foundation, received cash from Ruben Vardanyan, an oligarch and former boss of Moscow investment bank Troika Dialog, to help with its restoration.
Vardanyan and Trokya Dialog have been implicated in a major fraud as revealed by papers released by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a consortium of east European investigative journalists.
The papers show that between 2009 and 2011 the Prince's Charities Foundation received payments amounting to $202,000 via a bank in Lithuania.
Payments went to an account held by the Prince's Charities Foundation.
Ruben Vardanyan and associates made $1bn in 2011 when Troika was sold to Russian state owned Sberbank.
However the documents show a trail of shell companies, offshore accounts and phantom transactions – all hallmarks of a money-laundering operation.
The foundation, registered in Scotland, has an income of over £10m and has become a major contributor to communities in the area. It was instrumental in the redevelopment of the Cumnock Lido – an open air swimming pool that is hugely popular among locals.
A spokesman for Clarence House said the Prince of Wales's charities operate independently of the prince himself in relation to all decisions around fundraising.
A spokesman for The Prince of Wales' Charitable Foundation and The Dumfries House Trust said: "The charities apply robust due diligence processes. In the case of the examples highlighted, no red flags arose during those processes."
