A BBC investigation has revealed that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor received significant sums from an oligarch using funds from a company linked to criminal corruption.
According to lawyers for Kazakh billionaire Timur Kulibayev, he used a loan from Enviro Pacific Investments to purchase Andrew's former mansion.
The Italian prosecutor's office concluded that in 2007, this company received money as a result of bribery.
Just a few weeks after the last payment, the oligarch purchased the Sunninghill Park estate in Berkshire from the then-prince for £15 million (approximately $20 million) using funds from Enviro Pacific.
Kulibayev, the son-in-law of the former president of Kazakhstan, is a key figure in the country's oil and gas sector. The BBC also reported that another Italian businessman pleaded guilty to bribing the oligarch.
Kulibayev's lawyers assured that he is not involved in corrupt schemes and that the funds used to purchase Sunninghill Park were entirely legal.
These revelations raise questions about whether the then-prince may have inadvertently benefited from funds obtained through criminal means and whether the necessary checks were conducted to avoid this.
Tom Keating, director of the Center for Finance and Security, stated that the deal had "clear warning signs" that should have alerted lawyers and prompted a more thorough investigation to avoid "money laundering from corruption."
It is reported that Kulibayev paid £3 million more than the asking price and £7 million above the market value of the property.
The former prince did not respond to BBC requests for comments. In 2009, when the deal came under criticism, he commented in the Daily Telegraph: "It doesn’t matter once the price is paid. If it’s an offer, I’m not going to get into the details and assume that I’ve been overcharged."
On the Market
Sunninghill Park was gifted to Andrew by the Queen for his wedding in 1986. The two-story red-brick mansion, featuring 12 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms, became the subject of ridicule for its resemblance to a Tesco supermarket.
When the property was put up for sale in 2001, it failed to attract buyers, prompting Andrew to intervene. According to Simon Wilson, the deputy ambassador, in 2003 he used an official visit to Bahrain to try to sell the property to members of the royal families of the Gulf.
Ultimately, a buyer was found thanks to the then-prince's connections with Kazakhstan. In 2002, Andrew became the patron of the British-Kazakh Society, collaborating with authoritarian President Nursultan Nazarbayev. In 2006, Andrew visited Kazakhstan, and that same year, Nazarbayev met with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
In 2007, an offer to purchase Sunninghill Park came from Timur Kulibayev, Nazarbayev's son-in-law.
At that time, his fortune exceeded £1 billion, and he held an important position in the management of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Samruk-Kazyna, which controls a significant portion of Kazakhstan's oil and gas sector.
Andrew met Kulibayev through Kazakh businesswoman Goga Ashkenazi, who has two children with the oligarch. She later referred to the prince as a close friend but claims she has had no dealings with him for the past 15 years.
In June 2007, Andrew and Ashkenazi were spotted at Ladies' Day at Ascot in the company of the Queen. That same month, contracts for the purchase of Sunninghill were exchanged. Kulibayev used an offshore company, Unity Assets Corporation, to purchase the mansion, while the seller's interests were represented by Farrer & Co.
The deal was finalized in September of that year. In the same month, according to royal documents, British taxpayers paid £57,000 for a charter flight for Andrew traveling to Kazakhstan on official business.
At the time of the deal, the UK government expressed concern about the situation in Kazakhstan. Europe Minister Geoff Hoon informed parliamentarians in April 2007 about "widespread allegations of systemic corruption" in the country.
Despite these concerns, the identity of the buyer was not disclosed by either party, including Buckingham Palace, even considering Andrew's official role as a trade representative and his position in the line of succession.
In 2007, there was no obligation to disclose the names of offshore company owners purchasing property in the UK, and Kulibayev's name only became known three years later.
Corruption Links
The first wave of questions regarding the connection of the deal to corruption arose in 2012 when the Italian prosecutor's office began an investigation concerning allegations against Kulibayev.
The allegations included the possibility of using bribes to finance the purchase of Sunninghill through Enviro Pacific Investments, which, as it is now known, partially financed the deal. However, Kulibayev was not charged.
Nevertheless, the BBC examined documents from court cases in 2016 and 2017 that confirm the Italian prosecutors' conclusion that Enviro Pacific Investments received funds as a result of a bribery scheme.
These documents were first published in L'Espresso as part of the "Caspian Conspiracies" project by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
It is believed that Enviro Pacific Investments' connection to corruption is linked to another company called Aventall. In a case being heard in Monza, Italian oil magnate Agostino Bianchi pleaded guilty to bribing Kulibayev and other Kazakh officials, and Aventall was one of the companies used to transfer bribes. Kulibayev was not charged.
According to a plea agreement, Aventall was managed by Massimo Guidotti, who was considered a "middleman" in corruption schemes.
According to court documents in a similar case, he developed a rating system assessing the influence of Kazakh oligarchs. In a 2009 email, he gave Kulibayev the highest rating of five stars. However, in questioning by prosecutors, Guidotti denied giving bribes.
In another case in Milan, prosecutors reported that Aventall made payments of "allegedly corrupt nature" to Enviro Pacific Investments, which provided the loan for the purchase of Sunninghill.
Prosecutors claimed that $6.5 million (£3.27 million) was promised, but they could only confirm $1.5 million (£755,000) in payments. The last of these was made in April 2007, less than two months before the exchange of contracts for the acquisition of Sunninghill.
Prosecutors asserted that "open sources" indicate a connection between Enviro Pacific and Kulibayev. However, the Milan investigation was closed in January 2017, partly due to a lack of evidence linking the payments to specific contracts or establishing the identities of public officials who received the funds.
Kulibayev's lawyers told the BBC that he denies all allegations of receiving bribes and had no involvement in the awarding of contracts. They also assert that Kulibayev is not the subject of an investigation in Italy and that "he was not involved in and was unaware of any 'corruption schemes' involving Bianchi or Guidotti."
They confirmed that Kulibayev never owned or controlled Enviro Pacific and that it had no assets in his name. When asked about the owner of the company, they replied that the information is confidential.
However, the oligarch's lawyers confirmed to the BBC that their client "received a loan from Enviro Pacific in 2007 on commercial terms and at market rates" to finance the purchase of Sunninghill.
This means that the company allegedly linked to corruption was also involved in the deal with Andrew.
The lawyers did not dispute the loan amount of £6 million and confirmed that Kulibayev fully repaid it with interest.
They stated that the funds used to purchase Sunninghill were legal and that all necessary checks were conducted. According to the lawyers, he paid £15 million to secure the purchase, as there was a competing bidder.
Red Flags
After Kulibayev purchased Sunninghill, it remained empty for many years and was demolished in 2016. A new mansion with 14 bedrooms was built in its place, which also remained unoccupied.
There is no confirmation that the former prince knew the sources of the funds Kulibayev used to pay for the property.
Nevertheless, the deal had many nuances that could have alerted Andrew's lawyers and indicated the possibility of obtaining at least part of the funds through criminal means.
These include:
- Concern from the UK government regarding "systematic corruption in Kazakhstan" at the time
- Kulibayev's status as a public official and son-in-law of the president of Kazakhstan
- The use of complex offshore structures involving multiple companies and loan agreements without proper justification
- Alleged inflated price
- Lack of transparency regarding the buyer
Keating, a money laundering expert from the Center for Finance and Security, noted that regardless of status, all participants in real estate transactions should be mindful of the legal and reputational risks associated with offshore investments in the UK.
He added that since 2004, lawyers have been required to conduct strict checks on funding sources, including identifying the owners of offshore companies purchasing property.
Margaret Hodge, the government's anti-corruption representative, expressed shock at the BBC's revelations, adding that "proceeds from criminal activity" could have been involved "in an already controversial deal."
"These allegations require thorough investigation by both parliament and the relevant national agencies. No one should be above the law."
Both Buckingham Palace and the former prince declined to comment.
The royal family's lawyers, representing the seller's interests, also declined to comment, citing client confidentiality. The buyer's lawyer stated that all necessary procedures were followed and that the firm was aware that Kulibayev was the buyer of the property.
After Nazarbayev left the presidency in 2019, the new Kazakh government initiated legal proceedings in Switzerland to recover millions from individuals and legal entities accused of corruption. The bribery scheme in Italy, in which Kulibayev is allegedly involved, is part of this legal case, although the oligarch himself is not among the accused.
In early 2025, reports emerged that Kulibayev was negotiating to pay the Kazakh government $1 billion (£741 million) in connection with the investigation into his assets accumulated during his father-in-law's presidency.
His lawyers claim that Kulibayev's wealth was accumulated over decades of business activity and that no investigations against him are ongoing, and any suggestions that he is discussing compensation for illegally acquired assets are untrue.
