Andrew Mountbatten Windsor arranged a private tour of Buckingham Palace while the late Queen was in residence, for businessmen from a cryptocurrency mining firm which agreed to pay his ex-wife up to £1.4m, the BBC can reveal.
Jay Bloom and his colleague Michael Evers were driven through the palace gates in the former prince's own car after being collected from their five-star Knightsbridge hotel for the visit in June 2019.
Their company, Pegasus Group Holdings, which Mr Bloom co-founded, employed Sarah Ferguson as a brand ambassador for a crypto-mining scheme that would lose investors millions when it failed less than a year later.
Mr Bloom, an entrepreneur who previously set up a failed Mafia-themed museum in Las Vegas, and Mr Evers, a former actor, were met by a greeter and escorted inside the palace.
Mr Evers stated they met the Queen, although Mr Bloom disputed this. The pair were invited by the prince to his Pitch@Palace event later that day.
Ferguson, while still the Duchess of York, was working with Pegasus to promote a bitcoin mining project in the Arizona desert that ultimately fell short of its ambitious goals, acquiring only 615 out of 16,000 planned solar generators.
Legal action followed as investors sought accountability for unaccounted funds, with a tribunal ruling in favor of investors. This situation raises persistent questions about how Andrew and Ferguson have maintained their lifestyle amid ongoing public scrutiny.
On Thursday evening, Buckingham Palace announced it would begin the formal process of stripping Andrew of his royal titles, further complicating their public standing.
Buckingham Palace has not commented on the details surrounding the tour or the relationship with the cryptocurrency firm.
