Christopher Harborne, a shareholder in both Bitfinex and Tether’s parent company and a prominent right-wing backer, paid for Nigel Farage to visit Donald Trump following the failed assassination attempt against the former president.
That’s according to the UK Parliament’s latest register of interest filings, which details the financial interests of its politicians. It revealed that Farage’s trip to the US on July 17 cost £32,000 (~$41,500) and was funded by Harborne.
As reported by The Guardian, the trip was arranged for Farage “to support a friend who was almost killed and to represent Clacton on the world stage.” However, judging by the lack of photos of Trump and Farage together, it seems likely that the newly-elected member of Parliament (MP) never actually got to meet the 2024 presidential hopeful.
Farage has also been criticized by users on X (formerly Twitter) for the little time he has spent in his constituency.
Harborne’s crypto ties and big right-wing bets
Harborne has previously donated to other ring-wing figureheads, giving £1.2 million ($1.55 million) to disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and £15 million ($18.3 million) to the UK’s Conservative Party, the Brexit Party, and Nigel Farage’s own Reform UK.
He is also a shareholder in Tether’s parent company Digfinex and his son, William Harborne, is the founder of Rhino.fi, formerly Ethfinex, which is a Tether sister firm that was spun out of Bitfinex.
In early 2019, Harborne was issued over $70 million USDT under his alternative Thai name, Chakrit Sakunkrit. This year he sued the Wall Street Journal for defamation over its article, ‘Crypto Companies Behind Tether Used Falsified Documents and Shell Companies to Get Bank Accounts.’
Filings also detail that George Cottrell, Farage’s aid and a convicted criminal who was caught agreeing to launder drug funds, funded Farage’s £9,250 trip to the National Conservatism Conference in Brussels in April.
Farage was also revealed to have made almost £1.2 million a year from the right-wing broadcaster GB News, seemingly making him the highest-paid MP in the UK.