While Brexit’s Arron Banks’ UK-based troubles mount, local investigation appears non-existent

In 2017, Chris Kimber, a former South African business partner of Brexit funder and insurance entrepreneur, Arron Banks, lodged a statement with the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation implicating Banks in illicit diamond buying in “various African countries”, among other serious allegations.

Kimber also alleged that Banks, who had bought an interest in the Newlands Diamond Mine in Kimberley in 2014, had not only seeded the underproducing South African “asset” with diamonds obtained elsewhere, but had also sought to involve the Russian state diamond producer, Alrosa, in the deal and had “made certain promises to them”.

Kimber informed the Hawks that “it was decided by Arron Banks that diamonds would be acquired from third parties for export […] I was later to find out that Arron Banks… was involved in illicit diamond buying in various African countries.”

Banks, said Kimber, had been under pressure from Alrosa to prove the diamond yield from the Newlands Mine.

The allegations about Banks and his associates, James Pryor and Kobus Coetzee’s (of Banks’ Precision Risk Mitigation – PRI Holdings – based in the British Virgin Islands, a UK offshore tax haven) dodgy dealings in South Africa and Lesotho have rippled from the UK and Europe to South Africa, Lesotho and also Russia.

These allegations form part of various investigations into an intricate and opaque network of companies Banks is alleged to have used to funnel millions to the Leave.EU campaign in 2016 and which resulted ultimately in the Brexit vote.

Earlier in 2018 Channel 4’s Foreign Correspondent, Jonathan Rugman, conducted an in-depth investigation into Banks’ role in Lesotho and South Africa.

Open Democracy UK too spent months investigating Banks’ miraculous rise from vacuum cleaner salesman to being presented as one of Britain's wealthy man. Investigations editor Peter Geoghegan and journalist Adam Ramsey found “serious questions” about the extent of Banks’ wealth and the value of his “business empire”.

“The true value of Banks’ claimed ‘significant’ diamond discoveries in Lesotho is questionable, while his insurance business has been propped up by a £77-million cash injection from an unknown source, and people who specialise in using tax havens to protect the secrecy of wealthy clients were taking up seats on the board of one of his companies,” wrote Geoghegan and Ramsey.

Banks had often boasted of his mining interests in southern Africa including that he owned “several old De Beers mines”. He announced a “significant find” in Lesotho.

In August 2018 another criminal complaint was lodged with the Hawks and the also the UK’s Serious Office of Fraud in relation to Banks’ illegal funnelling of funds to Lesotho BNP party leader Thesele Maseribane, as well as the insurance owner’s creation of “an elaborate, yet opaque, corporate veil for the purpose of concealing the ‘control’ of certain diamond mines in South Africa in contravention of section 35 of the Diamond Act of 1986”.

Sworn statements handed to the Hawks indicate that in April 2014 Banks left South Africa “with a rough diamond in his possession, in contravention of the Diamond Act of 1986” and while it is a serious offence to be in possession of a rough diamond without the required permit, “it is also unlawful to export a rough diamond without declaring this to to customs and paying the appropriate levy”.

Further charges lodged against Banks include fraud, corruption, racketeering and contravening the Firearms Control Act.

Earlier this week the UK Electoral Commission, tasked with overseeing elections and monitoring political funding in that country, announced that it had referred several companies linked to the Leave.EU campaign to the National Crime Agency for criminal investigation.

The UK Electoral Commission investigation focused on £2-million reported to have been “loaned” by Banks and his group of insurance companies to “Better for the Country” as well as a further £6-million reported to have been given to the organisation, on behalf of Leave.EU, by Arron Banks in his personal capacity.

Over £2-million of this was used for referendum spending on behalf of Leave.EU and donations to other campaign groups during the EU referendum.

The commission said it had reasonable grounds to suspect that “Banks was not the true source of the £8-million loans made to Better for the Country” and that loans to Better for the Country, on behalf of Leave.EU, “involved a non-qualifying or impermissible company – Rock Holdings Limited, which is incorporated in the Isle of Man”. Banks and Leave.Eu’s CEO, Elizabeth Bilney, and others involved in Better for the Country, Leave.EU and associated companies, had, the Commission found, “concealed the true details of these financial transactions”.

Over and above this, Banks faces fines totalling £135,000 over breaches of data laws by Leave.EU and other of Banks’ companies as well as their links to Cambridge Analytica in the lead-up to the Brexit referendum. The Information Commissioner’s Office is conducting this investigation.

Kimber, owner of Supermix, a partner firm to Banks’ diamond company, Distribution Rocks, is also involved in a civil matter with Banks filed with the High Court of South Africa Northern Cape High Division, Kimberley, in February 2018.

A statement in this matter claims, among others, that Banks raised money from investors for the South African mines but had instead funneled the funds into the Brexit campaign and other interests.

The Hawks confirmed in July 2018 that the investigation into Banks had been escalated to its “head office”.

Considering the gravity of the charges and Banks’ implication in potential electoral fraud, international interest in the case is significant. Daily Maverick contacted the Hawks this week with regard to progress into the South African leg of the investigation in relation to Kimber’s statement as well as the August complaint.

While the Hawks might find themselves saddled with piles of hugely intricate investigations into State Capture, the Banks case appears to have gone nowhere fast.

Replying to an email query, Captain Lloyd Ramovha, Section Commander Corporate Communication and Liaison, requested Daily Maverick to “kindly provide us with the case number in this regard and the police station at which it was opened.” DM