British police announced on Monday that they would take no further action following an investigation into media reports that certain awards were given in exchange for donations made to one of the charities patronized by King Charles III, Reuters and Agerpres reported.

London’s Metropolitan Police’s Special Investigations Unit (SET) launched an investigation in February 2022 after the Sunday Times reported that a Saudi businessman had won an award after donating thousands of pounds to projects supported by the British monarch.

London police said the investigation was launched after they contacted The Prince’s Foundation, one of the main charities Charles patronized before he became king, to discuss an independent report into the organisation’s funding practices and that they had analyzed documents , provided by the foundation.

The two men, whose identities have not been released, were later questioned and British police said they had also requested more specific documents from the Sunday Times.

British police say they will look into ‘any new information’

However, after prosecutors reviewed the evidence to determine whether certain offenses had been committed under the Honors (Prevention of Abuse) Act and the Bribery Act, British police concluded that no further action was required in the investigation.

“If any new information or evidence comes to light that requires further investigation, this will be carried out by the SET’s Met,” the London police said. “No one has been arrested or formally charged during this investigation,” British police added.

After the Sunday Times newspaper published this article, Michael Fawcett, who for decades was considered the right-hand man of the current British king, resigned from the management of the mentioned fund.

Buckingham Palace has yet to comment on the London police’s decision to close the investigation, but a spokesman for King Charles III previously said the monarch had no knowledge of the alleged donation-based honors.

The allegations were made before Charles, then Prince of Wales, became king following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September 2022. Since the news first broke in September 2021, the Sunday Times has also published other articles about donations made to charities that look after the current British monarch.

Charges brought against King Charles concerning donations received

In June 2022, the same Sunday supplement reported that Charles would accept a cash donation worth €3 million from the former Qatari prime minister and carry some of the sum in shopping bags.

The former Prince of Wales’s press office said the sum had been transferred to one of his charities and all legal procedures had been followed, while a source close to the royal family said large cash donations were no longer being accepted. .

A month later, The Times reported that another British foundation, the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation, had accepted money from Osama bin Laden’s family.

Charles’s press office said the decision to accept the donation was made by the association after an appropriate period of consideration of the proposal and that the current British sovereign was not involved in the decision-making process.