Today several British tabloids simultaneously published a breathtaking story featuring their two sexiest topics at once — royal family and eastern moguls who buy out England.

According to the press, Prince Andrew — who also acts as Britain’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment — sold his Sunninghill Park residence to a Kazakh tycoon for £3million more than it was worth. Andrew is also a patron of the British-Kazakh Society, and seems to love this Central Asian state very much — it’s said that he often visits Kazakhstan, including for some “privately-funded” holidays.

A tycoon allegedly is head of the construction, manufacturing and energy conglomerate Sat & Co Kenes Rakishev, (not actually 29, as reported, but 39) bought the real estate for £15million, although its upper guide price was £12million last September.

The suspicious journalists and MPs are wondering whether the buyer is getting something in return by paying overpriced.

Sunninghill Park was a wedding gift from the Queen to Andrew and Sarah Ferguson in 1986. The house was purchased by BVI company Unity Assets Corporation last fall. It should be noted here that Rakishev is son-in-law of Imangali Tasmagambetov, the ex-mayor of Almaty, the former prime-minister and the immediate enemy of Rakhat Aliyev, who might be standing behind the scandal. Indeed, somebody had to tell the journos that “Tasmagambetov is a confidant of president Nursultan Nazarbayev and Timor Kulibayev, the president’s billionaire son-in-law”.

Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace “totally and utterly” rejected suggestions that the sale had anything to do with his position, although the fact of sale is not disproved: “It was a straight commercial transaction”, they said, adding that all negotiations took place in London and Windsor. The Kazakh side was also — untraditionally — very quick to react. In an brief comment to InterFax agency, Tasmagambetov called the publication in press a “provocational insinuation”. “Nobody of my family has anything to do with this deal”, he said.