Then-Prince Andrew handed ‘suitcase of cash’ over business deal: Biographer

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(NewsNation) — Jaws dropped when Andrew Lownie, the royal historian and biographer, claimed former Prince Andrew had 40 prostitutes delivered to his hotel rooms in Thailand over a period of four days in 2001 during the time he was a trade envoy for the U.K.

“In 2001, he is 41, he’s having his midlife crisis, and he basically starts chasing lots and lots of women,” the author of the unauthorized biography “Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York” alleged.

“He uses the excuse of his role as Trade Envoy, paid for by the taxpayer, to go off on these trips, but he always puts in two weeks of ‘private time.’ So, we pay for his holiday and then he goes off and does things,” Lownie continued.

But Thailand wasn’t the only place he “did things.” 

Andrew hired prostitutes while a trade envoy: Biographer

As Lownie told me, during his time as trade envoy, from 2001 to 2011, Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, used his position to have British taxpayers pay for a personal, international odyssey of debauchery.

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”One year, (Andrew) hired the top floor of the Landmark Hotel in Hong Kong and spent the weekend watching porn and had hookers come in,” Lownie said.

Lownie is now working on another book to be called “Untitled,” as he has “people coming out from the woodwork to talk about their time dealing with (then) Prince Andrew. They aren’t scared to speak anymore, and they want to get on the right side of history.”

Other places where Andrew is said to have been “entertained”? Mongolia, Kazakhstan, the Bahamas, Laos and Libya.

As I reported last week, during these trips, Andrew would refuse to stay in the U.K. embassies — preferring to have accommodations in five-star hotels where he could have privacy from prying government eyes and rack up hundreds of thousands of pounds in food, accommodation and travel expenses. It is on these trips that alleged meetings with prostitutes took place.

Andrew handed ‘a suitcase full of cash’ in personal business dealings: Lownie

And Andrew also enriched himself in these journeys and conducted dubious personal business dealings, Lownie says.  

“He was handed a suitcase full of cash in Kazakhstan,” Lownie told me. 

After that trip to Kazakhstan in 2007, Andrew sold his then-home, Sunninghill Park, a 12-bedroom country house near Windsor, Berkshire, to Kazakhstan oligarch Timur Kulibayev for a whopping $18 million … $5 million over what it was worth at the time. 

It’s for the financial impropriety that Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, will likely be prosecuted. 

“He won’t go down for sex trafficking,” Lownie told me. “It will be for financial impropriety.”

Sarah Ferguson, Andrew will get charged for financial crimes: Biographer

As for Andrew’s ex, Fergie, Lownie predicts she will be investigated for her charitable work.

”She has used charities to make money for herself,” Lownie told me. 

  • Party At Mar-A-Lago

In the past, Ferguson has been flagged by media and charity watchdogs for several issues, including potential conflict and self-interest or at least blurred lines between philanthropic and personal/commercial interests.

According to her Wikipedia entry (which itself cites media reports), her foundation (Sarah’s Trust) had income of about £250,000 over 18 months, during which only about £14,200 was spent on grants. 

She has also been accused of seeking access to the royals for cash, and in 2010, she was filmed by the newspaper News of the World offering access to her ex-husband (the then-royal) for £500,000 in a sting. The transaction allegedly involved a briefcase with £40,000. 

Fergie’s commercial ventures (book deals, endorsements, lifestyle brands) sometimes referenced charitable aims or used her charity profile for credibility — something Lownie points out could land her in hot water. 

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“She’s been basically using charities to make money. So she’s gonna be in trouble there,” Lownie said.

Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship back in the spotlight

Meanwhile, the latest dump of Jeffrey Epstein emails alleges that the picture of Andrew, Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell is indeed real after years of Andrew decrying the photo as “fake.”

“Yes, she was on my plane, and yes, she had her picture taken with Andrew, as many of my employees have,” Epstein wrote in an email to a journalist.

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