A relative of the King is facing questions after arranging a private jet and luxury safari holiday for Oleg Deripaska, the oligarch once known as Putin’s favourite industrialist, while he was under US sanctions.
Alexandra “Lexi” Bowes-Lyon, a New York-based British socialite whose father is the King’s third cousin, hosted a retreat for the billionaire at a nature reserve in Kenya in February 2021. Deripaska had been sanctioned by the US over his ties to the Kremlin three years earlier.
She arranged the trip as the philanthropic director at Space for Giants USA, the American branch of a British-registered elephant charity whose backers include the Prince of Wales. It has hosted fundraisers at Kensington Palace and Clarence House.
Deripaska, 55, who is accused of amassing his fortune through extortion, racketeering and ordering the murder of a rival, spent three days viewing lions, cheetahs and elephants in and around the Suyian Ranch, a “pristine and private” safari in Laikipia county, northern Kenya. Trips are invitation only.
Deripaska flew from Moscow to Nairobi on his private jet before boarding an aircraft leased by the charity and owned by Michael Spencer, the billionaire former Conservative Party treasurer who sits in the House of Lords as Lord Spencer of Alresford. Deripaska was accompanied by his bodyguard, a butler and an executive at Rusal, the Kremlin-backed aluminium giant he co-founded and which is the original source of his $3.2 billion wealth.