The Sunday Times reported that Prince Charles wrote a letter of thanks to Dmitry Leus and offered to meet him in person after receiving a large donation to the Prince Foundation in May 2020.
In the letter, Charles reportedly wrote that he was “incredibly grateful” for Leus’ “immense generosity” and that the donation had given him “great comfort,” the Sunday Times reported.
The newspaper said Leus had been found guilty of money laundering in Russia, but his sentence was later overturned. Leus, who appears to be seeking British citizenship, made his donations after a fixer promised a private meeting with Prince Charles at a Scottish castle, the Sunday Times reported.
A Leus spokesman confirmed that his sentence was overturned in 2007 and said Leus “has a completely clean criminal record”.
The Sunday Times said there was no evidence that Prince Charles was aware of any deception surrounding the donation.
When the foundation’s ethics committee raised concerns about Leus’ background, his donations were diverted to Children & the Arts, another charity of which Charles is a patron, the Sunday Times reported.
According to the Sunday Times, Children & the Arts denied knowing anything about the money.
CNN was unable to independently verify Sunday Times reports.
A Leus spokesman told CNN that Leus has made “two separate donations totaling £ 500,000” to the prince’s charity through a solution, Burke’s Peerage.
“Mr Leus has now learned that not all of these funds were transferred to the Prince’s Foundation. No funds from Burke’s Peerage were returned to him,” the spokesman told CNN, adding: “Mr Leus did not know , or consent, your donation is transferred to the Children’s Arts Foundation [and other organizations]. If they had consulted him, he would have chosen to use the money to help the many vulnerable children and young people that the Leus Family Foundation supports across the UK. “
The donations were “intended to support their educational and heritage goals,” the spokesman said, adding that Leus’ only additional goal for the contribution was “private hope that cooperation could eventually take place for create a National Fencing Center “.
CNN has contacted Burke’s Peerage to comment.
Douglas Connell, president of The Prince’s Foundation, said the allegations were taken “very seriously.”
“After the publication of an initial complaint related to ‘intermediaries’ and donors, the employers began a thorough and rigorous investigation with the assistance of forensic accountants from one of the ‘big four’ accounting firms,” he said. in a statement provided to CNN.
“This investigation is ongoing and it would be inappropriate to make any further comments at this stage,” he said, adding that the full review is expected to take several weeks.
According to a source with knowledge of the donations to the charity, the foundation received a donation of £ 100,000 on behalf of Leus in May 2020. The source said the amount was returned to the sender after a meeting of the foundation’s ethics committee in September 2020.
The watchdog said he had been “working with the Prince’s Foundation … to better understand the use of the organization’s funds and gain a full understanding of the work that the charity’s patrons are doing to investigating the range of issues they have has been raised “.
The allegations come a week after a former top aide to Charles voluntarily resigned as head of the Prince’s Foundation, amid allegations of misconduct reported to the Sunday Times last week.
Prince Charles “is unaware of the alleged offer of honors or British citizenship on the basis of the donation to his charities and fully supports the ongoing investigation into the Prince’s Foundation,” he told the channel on Monday. CNN a spokesman for Clarence House.
CNN’s Max Foster and Lauren Said-Moorhouse contributed to the information.
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