LONDON (AP) — Britain's National Crime Agency is investigating a main financial backer of the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union over suspected illegal campaign funding during the country's EU membership referendum, authorities said Thursday.
The Electoral Commission said wealthy businessman Arron Banks, his group Leave.EU "and other associated companies and individuals" are under criminal investigation. The inquiry concerns 8 million pounds ($10.3 million) reportedly loaned by Banks and his companies to a pro-Brexit group, Better for the Country.
The commission said it suspects Banks "was not the true source" of the money and concealed its real origins.
"The financial transactions we have investigated include companies incorporated in Gibraltar and the Isle of Man," said Bob Posner, the electoral watchdog's director of political finance.
"Our investigation has unveiled evidence that suggests criminal offences have been committed which fall beyond the remit of the commission," he added. "This is why we have handed our evidence to the NCA to allow them to investigate and take any appropriate law-enforcement action."
The crime agency confirmed the investigation but said it could not discuss "any operational detail."
British electoral campaigns are barred from taking money from overseas-based individuals or businesses.
Banks, a brash multimillionaire insurance executive, said he was confident a "full and frank investigation" would clear him.
"There is no evidence of any wrongdoing from the companies I own," he said. "I am a U.K. taxpayer and I have never received any foreign donations."
Ever since Britain voted by 52 to 48 percent in 2016 to leave the 28-nation EU, opponents of Brexit have raised questions about the source of funding for the "leave" campaign, the influence of Russian meddling and the role of social-media advertising using data harvested from millions of Facebook users by the firm Cambridge Analytica.
Banks, a close ally of former U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage and an enthusiastic U.K. supporter of President Donald Trump, has accused pro-EU politicians and campaigners of "trying to discredit the Brexit campaign."
"I'd like to think I'm an evil genius with a white cat that kind of controls the whole of Western democracy, but clearly that's nonsense" Banks told a committee of lawmakers in June.
