Prince Charles met a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin that same year, whose charity took a £300,000 donation from the businessman.
The Prince’s Foundation received the money in 2020 from a charity run by Moshe Kantor, although the billionaire was named on a “Putin List” released by the US Treasury Department in 2018.
Mr Kantor, who lives in a £31million mansion in Hampstead, north London, was sanctioned by Britain in April following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the Moscow-born oligarch had already spent years forging ties with Putin while funneling more than £15.5million into British institutions, including a £3million pledge to the Prince’s Foundation.
The revelations have sparked new concerns about Charles’s handling of controversial donors after reports said he had “brokered” a donation from Osama Bin Laden’s family – which Clarence House has denied.
Mr Kantor, 68, who is worth an estimated £3.5billion, has met Putin on at least seven occasions. The Russian President was the keynote speaker at the World Holocaust Forum organized by Mr. Kantor in January 2020. Charles also gave a speech and was pictured deep in conversation with the oligarch.
Moshe Kantor, 68, donated £300,000 to Prince Charles’ charity in 2020 and met the prince in the same year
Mr Kantor is valued at £3.5 billion and was sanctioned by the UK in April following the Russian invasion of Ukraine
In the same year, the Prince’s Foundation accepted a second donation of £300,000 from Mr Kantor’s charity.
This was followed by a payment of the same amount in 2019, which was the first installment of a £3million pledge to be paid over ten years.
Clarence House said: “As with all donations, the decision to accept this money should have rested with the trustees of the charity.”
It emerged last week that the Prince of Wales’ Charity Fund (PWCF) had received a £1million donation from Osama Bin Laden’s family after Charles met Bakr, the terrorist’s half-brother, privately at the Clarence in 2013 House held.
Clarence House said the trustees of the PWCF accepted the donation without the Prince’s involvement.
It came just weeks after it was revealed that Charles had personally received £860,000 in Fortnum and Mason tote bags as one of three cash payments totaling £2.5million from a former Qatari Prime Minister to the PWCF.
Separately, the prince is being questioned by police after allegations his closest aide offered to help a Saudi billionaire attain a knighthood and British citizenship in exchange for “generous” donations to his foundation.
Royal sources have insisted Charles was unaware of an alleged deal.
But former Lib Dem Minister Norman Baker, who filed a criminal complaint over the matter last year, said: “The Prince’s Foundation has a long history of taking money from unsavory characters. It now turns out that you are adding an oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin to the list.
“Either the Princely Foundation failed to do the due diligence or it just doesn’t matter.”
The Charity Commission froze the accounts of the Kantor Charitable Foundation after its founder was placed on the UK sanctions list.
Mr. Kantor is the largest shareholder in the fertilizer company Acron, which according to the Foreign Office is “of crucial strategic importance to the Russian government”.
The Prince’s Foundation said the decision to accept the Kantor donations was based “on information available at the time and not on information that later comes to light”.
Mr. Kantor, who has Russian, British and Israeli citizenship, was named by the US in 2018 as one of 114 Russian politicians and 96 oligarchs on its “Putin List” released after alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Washington said the listing was “determined by its proximity to the Russian regime and its assets,” but did not say the US had evidence of involvement in “malicious activities.”
A spokesman for Mr Kantor said it was “wrong and unfounded” to say he had ties to Putin and that portraying him as a “Russian oligarch was flawed and offensive”.
He added that Kantor’s meetings with Putin took place in his capacity as President of the European Jewish Congress and World Holocaust Forum.
And it is “perfectly normal” for his charity to donate to UK institutions as he and his family have lived in the UK for more than a decade, the spokesman said.