How bad were the bad boys of Brexit?
https://drugstoreculture.com/bad-were-bad-boys-brexit/
The Electoral Commission’s legal chief, Bob Posner:
"We have reasonable grounds to suspect money given to Better for the Country [which ran Leave.EU] came from impermissible sources
and that Mr Banks and [Liz] Bilney, the responsible person for Leave.EU,
knowingly concealed the true circumstances under which this money was provided.
This is significant because at least £2.9m of this money was used to fund referendum spending and donations during the regulated period of the EU referendum.
Our investigation has unveiled evidence that suggests criminal offences have been committed which fall beyond the remit of the Commission.
...
From the emails that we have seen, it is evident that Arron Banks had many meetings with Russian officials, including the Russian Ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko, between 2015 and 2017.
The meetings involved discussions about business deals involving Alrosa, the Russian diamond monopoly, the purchase of gold mines, funded by Sberbank, the Russian-state bank, and the transferring of confidential documents to Russian officials.
Mr. Banks seemed to want to hide the extent of his contacts with Russia,
while his spokesman Andy Wigmore’s statements have been unreliable – by his own admission – and cannot be taken at face value.
^ Mr Wigmore is a self-confessed liar and, as a result, little significance can be attached to anything that he says.^
It is unclear whether Mr. Banks profited from business deals arising from meetings arranged by Russian officials.
We understand that the National Crime Agency (NCA) is investigating these matters.
We believe that they should be given full access to any relevant information that will aid their inquiry…
Arron Banks is believed to have donated £8.4m to the Leave campaign,
the largest political donation in British politics,
but it is unclear from where he obtained that amount of money.
He failed to satisfy us that his own donations had, in fact, come from sources within the UK.
At the same time, we have evidence of Mr. Banks’ discussions with Russian embassy contacts, including the Russian ambassador,
over potential gold and diamond deals, and the passing of confidential information by Mr Banks."