A suitcase with a million euros in cash given to Charles

[antelopevalley]

The real question is what the Prime Minister was expecting in return.

"The Prince of Wales accepted a suitcase containing a million euros in cash from a former Qatari prime minister, the Sunday Times has reported.
The paper says this was one of three cash donations from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim totalling three million euros.
Clarence House said donations from the sheikh were passed immediately to one of the prince's charities and all the correct processes were followed.
There is no suggestion the payments were illegal.
According to the Sunday Times, Prince Charles received the three cash donations in person from the former prime minister between 2011 and 2015.
It is claimed that on one occasion the money was handed over in a holdall at a meeting at Clarence House. On another, the paper reported the cash was contained in carrier bags from the department store Fortnum and Mason."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61941113

They were donations for charities - such as the Prince’s Trust, not a personal gift.

Sure they were... donations. So, surely there should be a receipt somewhere?

A suitcase full of cash is dodgy, whether they were donation not.

Grubby as all hell. And he didn’t even get a peerage?!

Yea. Dodgy as fuck.

Any normal transactions go through a bank.

Leaving aside whether these were simple, charitable donations or not why on earth were they in CASH? It's so weird and seedy and old fashioned to give huge bagfuls of cash in carrier bags. Surely Sheikhs and Princes have the means to transfer money electronically. Alternatively, If they wanted to be old school and physically hand something over, then why not a cheque? In this day and age giving cash in such large amounts is just plain dodgy whatever it is for.

Normally large amounts of cash mean money laundering.

Monumentally dodgy. Charles is a bloody idiot for this.

Haha yes. From that kindly, charitable Qatari despot. He’s a lovely man.

Money laundering hoping for a favour of some sort in exchange would be my guess.

Adds to the view that the entire family is as dodgy as fuck

No one who works in the royal household thought to say 'hey Charlie boy, perhaps not the best idea, old chap'.
Bloody leeches the whole lot of them.

@Iamnotyourmum There have already been accusations that Charles too money for his charities in return for honours. Surely in the wake of that you would be extra careful about what you did?
Would you accept a suitcase full of money for a charity you are involved in? Or would you think this might be incredibly dodgy, I will ask him to make a bank transfer instead?

The payments weren't "illegal" but they certainly don't sound very kosher, let's not be naive! The thing with Charles is that he wants to come across as very high and mighty, always ready to be seen as morally better than most of the pleb but then he engages in this sort of behaviour, helps dodgy people get British citizenship. As long as there's money involved (and it's going in his pocket) he moral and ethical principals seem to be as flexible as bamboo.
As much as he's been protected, he keeps getting mixed up in dodgy affairs and then he's happy to let others take the fall.
This guy is going to be king one day! Hahahah! What an utter joke. He should say he wants the new generation to take over to save face and step the hell down. Can you imagine having a king mixed up in this?!?! Hahahah! The Spanish one's back in Spain after that long holiday in Qatar, wonder where he'll end up? My money's on St Helens, still British, so easy to control, but too far away to be a (massive) problem!
He should let William take over and tell Kate to stop messing with her face!

I do not think William should take over. It is hereditary you get who is next. You either abolish them or accept that fact.

I think he can step down. The same way the Kings of Spain stepped down for Filipe and Letizia. It's all about them wanting to do it.
It's a bit different but the Pope is supposed to be in it for life but one stepped down before to allow the current one to take charge.
It would better for him to step down than risk dragging them all down the drain even more. Charles might wear really fancy suits but he keeps stepping on mud and getting it all over his clothes!
Not a year goes by without him putting his foot in it! What about those developers who wanted to build sth and he wrote letters left and right, meddling in it because he's properties were going to be devalued?!

I think the “it’s all for charidee, folks!” excuse is threadbare now, and is beside the point in any case. The motivations of the donors is at least as important as the motivation of the fundraisers. Very concerning that Charles cannot seem to see that.

His properties not he's!!!!

People still try to money launder through charities. You can in many countries claim tax relief on donations. The other concern is whether he was expecting anything in return.

The Spanish one's back in Spain after that long holiday in Qatar, wonder where he'll end up? My money's on St Helens, still British, so easy to control, but too far away to be a (massive) problem!

I know this was a typo and you meant St Helena but am laughing at the thought of Juan Carlos shopping in Lidl then dropping into Spoons for a pint of mild.

That’s a completely western-centric view of the world. There are many, many economic systems int he world that are still based on cash transactions, and the Middle East is one of them. It still lags way, way behind Europe in digital transactions.

The other point to note is that cash by itself is not inherently bad. A high value transaction conducted with cash is regarded as suspicious because it tends to be a red flag that the money represents the proceeds of criminal activity (and so can’t be transferred through the banking system because that would involve checks that will reveal its criminal source). But suspicious does not always mean dodgy. If you do your checks on the person giving you the cash - they are who they say they are, they have a legitimate reason for giving you the money and legitimate sources for the money - then the cash can be accepted without issue (this isn’t an assumption on my part, there are regulations around this).

Here, I presume the former PM, the stated purpose of the money and its provenance passed the checks and were accepted - I don’t know anything more than has been reported on this, but I can see that the checks could easily have been made to verify what has been reported. If so, its a non-story, but I guess someone is looking to throw some dirt.

While it's true of course that billions of people in the world don't have a bank account, I'll eat my hat if Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim is one of them.

Charities follow AML procedures to ensure transparency and accountability, and part of those procedures is ensuring a clear paper trail for large donations. Accepting suitcases full of cash is pretty much as blatant a breach as it gets. It's not that cash is "inherently bad"- it doesn't have to be. And in this case the issues are even more serious as what happened was not a donation from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim to the Prince's Trust but to the Prince himself (a person of influence) who passed the money on.

It's incredible to me that this was allowed to take place and suggests that, at best, the PoW is being extremely poorly advised.

Ha ha.