Prince Harry was duped into a phone call with a Russian scammer pretending to be Greta Thunberg
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Buckingham Palace feared a “scam” when it contacted a media company after Prince Harry was tricked into a phone call with a Russian scammer posing as Greta Thunberg.
- The Palace has treated correspondence with a media outlet with caution
- Sources revealed that part of the reason was one of Prince Harry’s own mistakes.
- The duke was tricked into thinking the caller was climate activist Greta Thunberg.
When the Palace received an email from an unknown media company purporting to be involved in Harry and Meghan’s new Netflix show, they treated the correspondence with extreme caution.
There was no obvious sign that the email, which made specific allegations not yet featured on the show, came from a company truly connected to the Sussexes’ television project.
Palace officials, seeking to confirm its veracity, contacted both Netflix and Archewell, Harry’s production company.
They received no response.
Now, sources have revealed that, ironically, it’s one of Harry’s own mistakes that has made courtiers particularly wary of dubious requests for comment.
Prince Harry (pictured with Meghan Markle) was tricked into having a revealing phone call with a Russian scammer posing as Greta Thunberg.
A source said: “There is a lot of caution, of course, and there are two words to explain that: Greta Thunberg.”
It means Palace operators have been on high alert ever since Prince Harry was tricked into having a revealing phone call with a Russian scammer posing as teenage Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg.
Harry responded to an email sent by Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov, giving them his personal email and phone number. He even returned their call from his mobile.
In two unguarded conversations on New Year’s Eve and January 22, 2020, Harry believed he was speaking with Greta Thunberg and her father.
The duke was tricked into thinking he was talking to the climate activist (pictured) and her father.
During the talks, which the scammers broadcast online, Harry criticized US President Donald Trump, saying he had ‘blood on his hands’ over his climate change credentials and discussed his break with the royal family.
Stolyarov later told The Sun newspaper: ‘Your staff must have sent you the email. The emails were probably passed through many people before he received them. We were shocked when he emailed us. No one ever inspected us to see who we really were.