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Reform UK receives another £4m from crypto billionaire Ben Delo
Delo’s US 2022 money laundering controls conviction was followed by a Trump pardon, and his latest gift adds to earlier £4m support for the party.
Reform UK has received an additional £4 million from British crypto billionaire Ben Delo, with the party saying it is confident the donation will not be caught by a new overseas donor cap.
Delo was convicted in the United States in 2022 for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls in his cryptocurrency business, before being pardoned by Donald Trump. The latest donation means Delo has given £8 million in total to Reform, making him the party’s second biggest contributor after Thailand based crypto investor Christopher Harborne.
The Electoral Commission donation figures cited by the outlet show Harborne did not give any money in the second quarter of the year, and neither did billionaire Sasan Ghandehari, who recently pledged to give millions. The overseas donor cap applied since March states donors must be on the UK domestic electoral register for at least 12 months to avoid an annual cap of £100,000.
The outlet also notes that a Reform source said the party was confident it would not have to return Delo’s latest £4m, even though he had been expected to fall within the cap after writing in The Telegraph about making his first donation since the start of the year. Separately, the UK government has been considering whether to extend an annual cap to donations from UK based donors, after forming a taskforce focused on mega-donors, but has not included a cap in the elections bill discussed this week.