Prince Andrew told bankers to call his Buckingham Palace office if they were concerned about a £750,000 (approximately $980,000) payment from suspected fraud Selman Turk, The Daily Telegraph has revealed.
The newspaper earlier claimed that the Duke of York had received payments worth more than £1 million from Turk after the two met through Andrew’s gun smuggler friend, Tarek Kaituni, in the early summer of 2019. The £750,000 sum is believed to be a “wedding gift” for Princess Beatrice.
The new revelation comes after the Telegraph reported that Prince Andrew and his former wife Sarah Ferguson had been named in a financial dispute between Turk and Nebahat Evyap Isbilen, a 77-year-old Turkish millionaires who claims that the 35-year-old entrepreneur defrauded her by stealing about £40million.
The complicated case is still in its early stages as no trial has yet taken place and the allegations have not been resolved. Turk denies all wrongdoing.
In preliminary hearings, it was alleged that “substantial sums” were paid to the Duke and Duchess of York, but there has been no suggestion they have any involvement in allegations of fraud.
The Telegraph cited Isbilen as saying in her affidavit that in November 2019, she authorised a bank transfer of £750,000 to the Duke of York. According to her, police had seized her previous passport and Turk purportedly obtained a new passport for her through connections with Turkish authorities.
“Mr Turk told me that he received help from the Duke of York to show or send the picture of my old passport to Turkey and that this service would normally be worth £2 million, but it would cost less if we made the payment by way of a gift. I did not understand the nature of the services received then and also have difficulty explaining it now. I have seen an e-mail from Mr Turk […] explaining that this transfer was a wedding gift to Princess Beatrice owing to the close connection between our families. This email is entirely false,” Isbilen maintained.
As for Turk, since being introduced by Kaituni to Prince Andrew in 2019, the London-based Turkish businessman is alleged to have made payments totalling £1.1 million to the Duke of York, £250,000 to Sarah Ferguson and £25,000 to Princess Eugenie.
Kaituni, in turn, attended Fergie's 60th birthday anniversary in mid-October 2019 and Eugenie's wedding in October 2018.
A spokesman for Prince Andrew refused to comment "on an ongoing legal matter" when contacted by The Telegraph. The developments come after the Duke of York managed to dodge the embarrassment of facing his sex abuse accuser in court by paying off Virginia Giuffre in a civil settlement deal reported to be worth up to £12 million.
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