New questions are being raised regarding Prince Andrew's latest scandal involving himself, his wife, and Turkish woman and a businessman.

Selman Turk, the founder and chief executive of Heyman AI, a digital challenger bank, received an award in 2019 from Andrew at a Pitch@Palace event.

The day after the event, concerns were brought to a senior member of the royal household, Amanda Thirsk. 

According to the Guardian, Thirsk was told that Heyman AI’s win “did not feel right or make sense”, adding “it would be [a] shame if people were gaming the system,” to which she replied, “I also think your point is right that a campaign to ‘game’ the position is not quite in keeping … we will certainly look at this again for next time.”

Many participants also told the Guardian that they found Turk's win unusual and that he "won it by miles" even though his pitch was "crap." Some even suspected that Turk used bots to boost his vote count. 

In his pitch which was broadcasted live, Turk forgot his words. Before he could finish, he was interrupted by the trumpets of the duke's grenadiers. 

Court documents allege that Turk instructed Nebahat Isbilen, a Turkish millionaire, to pay Andrew £750,000 nine days after the event. Furthermore, Andrew was also said to have received £350,000 from a company connected to Turk.

The duke declined to comment on the details of the payments. However, said details surfaced last week as Isbilen filed a lawsuit against Turk in the high court, accusing Turk of defrauding her on £40 million. However, Turk denies the allegations.

About 6 months before the Pitch@Palace event, Turk met with Andrew between May and June 2019.

One source that knew what went on in the event said Turk received some 10,000 votes - on the other hand, other participants got hundreds.

One of the 2019 participants told the Guardian: “There was a group of us on the day that felt the People’s Choice award hadn’t felt right during that competition.

“Because their pitch was crap … Their whole concept was bizarre in that they were pitching for something when they didn’t have a licence. There was a group of us who felt it didn’t [seem] right that they had won the People’s Choice because they won it by miles.

“A few of us made the assumption, rightly or wrongly, that we thought … bots [must have been used] to do this because the way the awards worked was you were actively told to go on your network and get people to vote for you.”

Another participant close to 2019 told the Guardian,  “Our initial surprise at Heyman AI winning that particular award makes more sense now.

“We watched all the pitches and Heyman AI didn’t stand out. Further, there seemed to be some more impactful companies that the typical member of the public would be drawn to, that is, those actually helping people as opposed to a new banking app.

“I think our thoughts were that they had mobilized more friends and family/social media followers. It was very much an innocent ‘I wonder how they did that?’ as opposed to assuming anything malevolent. We weren’t expecting to win, but at least we thought it was set up as a fair contest.”

Turk admitted, in his defense statement, that he held meetings with Andrew in his flat in September 2019, 2 months before the event. He claims, however, that he did not instruct Isbilen to pay Andrew £750,000. 

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