The self-styled “Bad Boy of Brexit” Aaron Banks has been under scrutiny regarding the source of his funds which financed the Brexit leave campaign he ran in parallel with the official Leave campaign. This had the effect of doubling the spending by the Brexiteers compared to the Remain campaign. The National Crime Agency has instigated an investigation into the source of these funds.
Banks has consistently denied any Russian funding or indeed that he had any plans for deals with Russia. Channel 4 News in Britain has found evidence that he lied about contacts with those close to the Kremlin.
A Channel 4 News investigation can reveal for the first time how a finance company substantially owned by Banks drew up a business pitch for a Kremlin-linked oligarch called Siman Povarenkin to merge six Russian gold miners into a single company.
Five months before the referendum, the finance company suggested that Banks travel to Russia to meet executives at state-owned bank Sberbank to hurry the deal along.
Associates of Mr Banks even identified a shell company, based in Sweden, to be used as a vehicle for the deal.
Russia experts have told Channel 4 News that the document suggests Mr Banks and his associates expected the funding to come “one way or another from the Russian government”.
Shell companies, suggestions of illegal Russian campaign funding, mysterious Russian oligarchs, Russian banks, secret meetings that the very existence of was denied or downplayed. It must sound very familiar to Americans!
Channel 4 News is primarily a one hour show at 7pm each weekday, with shorter bulletins at other times. It’s provided by ITN (Independent Television News) that also produces news bulletins for the ITV Channel. Their investigative unit has won a lot of awards for its reporting. Channel 4 itself is a state-owned corporation (similar to the BBC but funded through advertising) and is independent of government. It is “real news”1