The Duke and ‘the spy’: Espionage crisis engulfs palace
Bombshell new details have emerged about the Duke of York’s years-long ties to an alleged agent for Beijing as MI5 launches an investigation.
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The photo shows two middle-aged men politely smiling for the camera at a business event.
It could not, superficially, be a duller image, but it is one that has rocked Buckingham Palace.
The shot shows Prince Andrew with Yang Tengbo, who used the name Christopher Yang, a man who was, for years, a “close confidant” of the royal.
Yang has since been outed as an alleged Chinese spy who managed to infiltrate not only the royal inner sanctum, but also cosied up to former British prime ministers Theresa May and David Cameron.
It’s a growing crisis and massive embarrassment that threatens to engulf the Palace and which has brought down fresh scrutiny on the duke’s mysterious finances, with spy agency MI5 now investigating links between Chinese cash and the royal’s business ventures.
Now, the heat on King Charles’ brother is being dialled up.
Hang on. Andrew was paling around with a ‘spy’?
A decade-long “close confidant” of the exiled Duke of York was revealed last week to be a man that the UK security services believe to be a spy.
This week, the ‘spy’ was named for the first time as Yang, a 50-year-old businessman who has spent much of the last two decades in the UK.
At the centre of this story is Andrew’s Pitch@Palace initiative, a Shark Tank-style competition to help entrepreneurs that he founded in 2014.
This was three years after he was dumped as the UK’s trade ambassador after his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein was first revealed.
While Pitch@Palace was run as a charity in the UK, its international arms were for-profit outfits.
According to the Telegraph, Yang “appears to have targeted” Andrew via the scheme, with the pair meeting sometime around 2015 or 2016.
By 2018, Yang had been appointed as the head of the Chinese arm of Pitch@Palace.
In 2016, after the founding of Pitch@Palace China, Yang spoke about being “entrusted” by Andrew in regards to this initiative.
It was the beginning of a close business friendship.
Over the years, a number of Pitch@Palace events were held in China and the UK and Yang enjoyed invitations to Buckingham Palace, twice, along with Windsor Castle and St James’s Palace.
Such was Andrew and Yang’s relationship that the latter made the guest list for the royal’s 60th birthday party in 2020, even though his own brothers and sister, Charles, Prince Edward and Princess Anne, were reportedly not invited.
The Duke of York was not the only high profile figure that Yang managed to cosy up to, with a profile of the businessman, which aired on the Chinese state broadcaster, showed he kept photos of him posing with Lord Cameron and Baroness May.
It is not clear if either was prime minister when the encounters took place.
‘Benefited financially’
How much money might Pitch@Palace have made?
No one knows, however, according to the Telegraph, “the Duke is understood to have benefited financially from the scheme”.
Under the Pitch@Palace terms, he was allowed to take two percent of investment deals.
In 2017, the executive vice-chairman of Pitch@Palace China said it had launched a $1.9 billion (£1 billion) fund for startups.
In November 2021, Yang was detained at the UK border under counter terrorism laws and the contents of his phone were downloaded and which revealed the extent of the connection between Andrew and Yang.
Documents revealed that the brother of the King had authorised Yang to set up an international investment fund and to find potential backers in China.
A March 2021 letter from Dominic Hampshire, a senior adviser to Andrew, appeared to boast they had found a way to work around Charles’ aides, writing: “Under your guidance, we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor.”
The letter states: “I also hope that it is clear to you where you sit with my principal and indeed his family…you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.”
MI5 and the King get involved
Over the weekend it was revealed that the British domestic spy agency MI5 is investigating Chinese money given to Andrew.
The question of how the duke funds his lifestyle, including the upkeep for his grand home Royal Lodge and for his private security which costs millions of dollars a year, remain unanswered.
However, don’t look to Buckingham Palace to shed any light on the situation.
It also emerged that the Palace is legally hamstrung to scrutinise where the duke gets his money from and has “no power, authority or legal right” to actually review his books.
All they have to go on are reportedly assurances given to Sir Michael Stevens, Keeper of the Privy Purse that his money had been “legitimately earned”.
The Palace is now on the hunt for details too and is investigating who Yang might have had contact with while he was on royal grounds.
‘An open secret’
In July 2023, Yang was deemed by MI5 to be an agent and posed a threat to national security, which saw the Home Office ban him from the UK.
Yang is now appealing the Special Immigration Appeals Commission’s ruling (SIAC) which is keeping him out of Britain.
On Monday a court anonymity order protecting Yang was removed and he was publicly named, though his identity has been, according to the Times, “an open secret for years”.
In a statement, Yang said had “done nothing wrong or unlawful” and the “widespread description of me as a ‘spy’ is entirely untrue”.
The Duke of York has previously said in a statement that he had met Yang through “official channels” and that “nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed.” He had “ceased all contact” with Yang “after concerns were raised.”
Pressure mounts
The calls for Andrew to come clean about what, if any, money might have changed hands thanks to Pitch@Palace are only growing.
There are also a growing number of voices agitating for Andrew’s dealings while he was the UK’s trade ambassador from 2001-2011 to come under scrutiny.
Well, at least for Andrew and any plans he might have had to celebrate with this family when they gather at Sandringham next week. On Tuesday it was revealed that he and his ex-wife and housemate Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, had decided to stay away. Previously it has been reported that Charles wanted his brother to do the “gentlemanly” thing and to bow out rather than wait to be outright barred.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
Originally published as The Duke and ‘the spy’: Espionage crisis engulfs palace
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