Prince of Wales’s health charity wound up in wake of fraud investigation
The Prince of Wales’s complementary health charity ceased operating today following the exposure this week of an alleged fraud and money-laundering scandal at the organisation.
The trustees of the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, of which Prince Charles is president, said last night they had brought forward a planned decision to wind up the charity as a result of a continuing police investigation by Scotland Yard.
At dawn on Monday, a 49-year-old man, understood to be a former senior executive at the charity, and a 54-year-old woman were arrested at an address in north-west London and questioned on suspicion of fraud and money laundering.
The alleged crime is understood to have seriously undermined the charity’s finances, costing it as much as £300,000 – about a quarter of its annual revenue. The black hole emerged in the 2008 accounts.
The foundation operated for 17 years and became highly influential, but despite its constitutional independence from the royal household it was seen in some quarters as a vehicle for Prince Charles’s often controversial views on healthcare. The announcement of its closure was greeted with satisfaction by some leading specialists in the area of complementary medicine and pharmacology.