- Alexandra Tolstoy says she was flagged by Natwest after the Mail’s interview
- The 49-year-old was declared a politically exposed person without any warning
Countess Alexandra Tolstoy was in a tent in central Asia when the scale of her predicament hit. Having her accounts closed by NatWest after seven years of impeccable banking, she feared she’d struggle to support her children or maintain her business.
The Anglo-Russian adventurer, broadcaster and writer says: ‘You hear horrific things about what some people do to themselves in such situations.
‘It can be life-changing. You feel utterly helpless.’
Last week, Alexandra, 49, a descendant of the Tolstoy dynasty, reckoned that she had discovered why she had been declared persona non grata by the bank.
Without her knowledge, she had been declared a PEP (a politically exposed person) and had her name flagged on the database of World-Check, which helps businesses identify a variety of specific third-party risks by screening people for money-laundering, sanctions and terrorist financing.
It was, in part, because of an interview she gave to the Daily Mail 12 years ago.
The 2011 article focused on her love affair with Russian oligarch Sergei Pugachev and their plans to attend the wedding of Prince Albert of Monaco. It spoke about Botox and Bentleys, and the Valentino haute couture frock that Alexandra would be wearing.
It was considered strong enough evidence to be included in the World-Check file which Alexandra says is now having such a big impact on her financial affairs.
‘How can they use newspaper headlines swept off the internet?’ she asks. ‘Where is the due diligence, the forensic inquiry, the cross-referencing, the use of government information, verified and double-checked?
‘Why does World-Check not look at Companies House or His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, for example, if they want to scrutinise my life?
‘I was even listed as living in Monte Carlo. I don’t. I’m not hard to find in the UK. I pay my council tax in Wandsworth [in South-West London] and I’m on the electoral roll.
‘No one knows if they are on World-Check’s list, yet financial institutions and regulatory agencies use it to make fundamental decisions about our lives.
‘If you try to defend yourself, you are fighting shadows. It’s Orwellian, sinister. I feel like I’ve been convicted of a crime without anyone telling me what it is I’m supposed to have done.’
Alexandra is relieved to have identified the apparent reason that NatWest has closed her accounts but she now faces months of detective work to track down all the second- and third-tier reference agencies which have used World-Check’s information and flagged her as a risk.
Her plight is doubtless connected to her relationship with Pugachev, the father of her two sons and her daughter.
The couple, who never married, split acrimoniously when the man once known as ‘The Kremlin’s banker’ fled the UK in 2015, despite a court order banning him from leaving the country.
According to Alexandra, who was born in the UK and is a British citizen, they are not in contact and he has not supported her and their children since he left.
She says she has no financial links to Russia – something which would be checked by NatWest.
In April, Alexandra got a letter from NatWest saying it no longer wanted her as a customer and would be closing her accounts. It arrived like ‘a bolt from the blue’, she says.
Flying between the UK and Kyrgyzstan, where she had multiple clients on the adventure horse-riding holidays she runs, she sought more information. The bank told her: ‘We’re not obliged to enter into any discussion or provide a reason for our decision.
‘We’ve reviewed our rationale behind the decision and, unfortunately, this remains unchanged. We therefore won’t be meeting with you or discussing this further.’
After being advised by a friend to make a Data Access Request – something anyone is entitled to ask of an organisation they suspect of holding personal information about them – she learned about World-Check and that she was flagged on its list.
It was then that she found out that part of their evidence was the Daily Mail interview. She believes this is responsible for NatWest’s actions, although she has yet to be officially told by the bank.
NatWest has said it treats compliance as ‘a matter of priority’ but could not comment on the specifics of the case.
This isn’t the first time Alexandra has found herself in such circumstances – Barclays removed her as a customer after a 25-year relationship at the time of her split from Pugachev.
She did not challenge the decision because she believed it was collateral damage from the end of their relationship.
She faced similar treatment from First Direct and Metro Bank but then took her account to NatWest where she has been a customer since 2016.
After NatWest’s decision, a fortnight ago she opened an account with an online bank.
‘The secrecy has been so hard to handle,’ she says. ‘If you don’t know what information is being held on you, and by whom, you can’t know if it’s wrong.
‘In a court of law, you need facts,’ she says. ‘Why do they not matter here?’
