UK crime agency to investigate Brexit-backer businessman

The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) said on Thursday it had started an investigation into British businessman Arron Banks, who financed one of the main campaigns for Britain to leave the EU.

Banks, who was pictured with Donald Trump and leading Brexiteer Nigel Farage outside a gilded elevator soon after Trump’s 2016 U.S. presidential election victory, said he welcomed the investigation.

"It is an opportunity for us to clear up the matter," Banks told agency. "The Electoral Commission has said offences may have been committed but have provided no evidence."

Banks said he had written to Prime Minister Theresa May to ask for an investigation.

The National Crime Agency, which investigates serious and organised crime, said the investigation comes after a referral from the Electoral Commission but will extend to offences other than breaking an electoral law.

Banks, who ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum financed Leave.EU, a campaign led by Farage, then the leader of the UK Independence Party, has faced questions in parliament about the source of his wealth.

"Rock holdings is a company I own and control and I’m a U.K. taxpayer, no Russian or foreign money has ever come into it," Banks said.

The Electoral Commission said it had reasonable grounds to suspect that Banks was not the true source of 8 million pounds of loans made to a company called Better for the Country Limited (BFTCL) - of which Banks was a director.

BFTCL was not registered as a permitted participant in the referendum and a number of criminal offences may have been committed, the Commission said.

In the June 23, 2016 referendum, 17.4 million votes, or 51.9 percent of votes cast, backed leaving the EU while 16.1 million votes, or 48.1 percent of votes cast, backed staying, a result that defied opinion polls.