World's youngest billionaire, Alexandra Andresen, got rich thanks to tobacco giant

The world’s youngest billionaire inherited her fortune from a tobacco firm that allowed child labourers as young as 10 to harvest the deadly crop in Africa, MailOnline can reveal.

Glamorous Norwegian dressage rider Alexandra Andresen, 19, received $1.2billion from her father, who had taken over the cigarette company that his great-great-grandfather bought in 1849.

But the tobacco giant has been forced to admit that it had benefited from the use of child labour on plantations in Malawi and Zimbabwe. When challenged, a spokesman admitted he knew it had been going on, but said: 'What can we do?'