Canadian billionaire who lent holiday mansion to Prince Harry and Meghan is named as controversial mining tycoon
PRINCE Harry and Meghan Markle’s Vancouver Island bolthole is owned by a controversial Canadian billionaire with links to the Clintons, it emerged last night.
The royals have so far refused to reveal the owner of the £11million waterfront mansion near Victoria, British Columbia, but it is now believed to be former stockbroker Frank Giustra.
Divorced dad-of-two Giustra, 62, co-founded Hollywood studio Lionsgate – producing movies including American Psycho and the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
He is also known as one of the biggest donors to the Clinton Foundation.
In 2005, he and President Bill Clinton traveled together to Kazakhstan to meet with the former Soviet republic’s authoritarian leader.
Shortly after Giustra acquired shares in three of the country’s state-run uranium mines - a venture valued at more than £2.2billion.
Months after the Kazakh pact, Giustra reportedly gave a £24million donation to the Clinton Foundation and has since publicly pledged he’ll donate £76million.
Both Giustra and Clinton have strongly denied the former US president helped him cement the Kazakh deal and Giustra later divested himself of the assets.
In 2016, as Hillary Clinton was running for US President, leaked e-mails revealed that Giustra and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim gave an endowment of £15million in 2010.
GIUSTRA AND THE CLINTONS
It was used by the Clinton Foundation to set up the for-profit Haiti Development Fund, intended to give seed money to Haitian entrepreneurs after the devastating earthquake.
Yet there is “almost nothing in the public record” showing what happened to the millions of dollars, according to reports at the time.
Giustra was furious at the claims and later told Canada’s National Post that the Clinton allegations were “insanity…a f****** circus”.
The businessman, who currently runs the private equity firm Fiore Financial, remains on the board of directors of the Clinton Foundation and is a renowned philanthropist.
He won the 2014 Dalai Lama Humanitarian Award and the Order of British Columbia in 2016, the highest civilian honor for achievement benefiting local people.
MANSION LOANED FOR FREE
Giustra is believed to have loaned Harry and Meghan his mansion for FREE.
The main house, called Mille Fleurs, was bought in 2014 and registered under a local country club to shield the identity of the owner.
Giustra is a very close friend of famed music producer David Foster, whose wife Katharine McPhee went to school and worked on theater productions with Meghan in LA.
Foster has said he set up Meghan and Harry with the house after learning they were in need of a discreet location to spend the holidays.
On Thursday, Meghan flew back to the Vancouver Island home to join baby Archie, who was under the care of a nanny following her trip to London amid the ‘Megxit’ fall-out.
A convoy of three Toyota people carriers with a black Land Rover Discovery following at the rear moved swiftly out of the mansion on Saturday lunchtime.
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It is understood the Discovery was carrying British Royal protection officers while at least two of the people carriers were manned by Royal Canadian amounted Police officers.
The Discovery was back at the £11million house four hours later, but it is not known where the convoy went.
One local source claimed that Meghan was going to head to Los Angeles to see her mum Doria.
