Shortly before Christmas 2022, Chakrit Sakunkrit, owner of the Kamalaya Wellness Sanctuary on the Thai island of Koh Samui, invited 200 guests to celebrate his 60th birthday. One sultry afternoon, Sakunkrit and a small group gathered around a table near the shore. To his right, dressed down in a polo shirt, sat Nigel Farage.
Since Brexit marked the achievement of his life's work three years earlier, Farage had fizzled. Now, with the Conservatives in disarray after Liz Truss's disastrous budget that September, Farage was hinting at a more ambitious project: to make himself prime minister.
Sakunkrit speaks perfect English. In fact, he is English. He chose a Thai name (Chakrit means he who is awake) when he naturalised there in 2011. On other filings, he goes by the name he was born with in Mosborough, near Sheffield: Christopher Charles Sherriff Harborne.
Over the past seven years, Harborne has given more than £22m to Farage's political party. That accounts for two-thirds of all funding received by Reform UK, making it uniquely dependent among British parties on a single benefactor. August's £9m was the largest single amount ever given by a living donor. Another £3m followed in November.
Harborne is, his lawyers say, an 'intensely private person'. He has given no public explanation of his reasons for donating. Asked in December about his donations, Farage said, 'Does he want anything from me? No. Absolutely nothing in return at all. He just happens to think that we've not made the most of Brexit.'
One 21st-century technology has turbocharged Harborne's wealth: cryptocurrency. He was an early buyer of digital tokens that have soared in value. He is one of half a dozen enigmatic tech types who own Tether, the company that issues the most widely traded cryptocurrency.
Registered in El Salvador, with a tiny staff, Tether has been described as the most profitable company per employee in history. It has issued $184bn in stablecoins. They have grown popular as a way to move money across borders, but billions of Tether's stablecoins are also known to have been put to illicit purposes by gangsters, scammers, and sanctions-busters.
Yet Farage champions Tether. 'Tether is a stablecoin,' he said on LBC radio in September. 'Stablecoins are the way which money goes from conventional currencies through into cryptocurrencies and back again. Tether is about to be valued as a $500bn company.'
If Farage helps Tether become a $500bn company, it will make the proprietor of the Kamalaya Wellness Sanctuary one of the richest people on the planet.
Harborne appears to have taken after his mother in temperament and his father in profession. Mark Vellacott, an aerospace businessman and close friend of Harborne's late sister, describes him as level, gentle, and extremely clever. 'Chris does not like anything that's going to control him.'
After private school at Westminster, Harborne followed his father to Cambridge, where he studied engineering. He proceeded to McKinsey, a French business school, and senior positions at multinationals like PepsiCo. Arriving in Thailand in 1996, he joined a market research firm. The Asian financial crisis struck in 1997, and Harborne did well enough to set up his own investment firm in 2000.
In 2005, he founded AML Global, a jet fuel broker operating at over 1,200 locations worldwide. An episode from 2008 suggests a man who may feel that rules are for other people. Harborne took off in his lightweight two-seater and crashed into a couple's patio. He was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries.
Harborne started buying bitcoin in 2011. By 2014, the price had risen a thousandfold. That year, he became a 'whale' in a new cryptocurrency on Ethereum. His early investment in Ethereum now accounts for a major portion of his net worth.
Reform has become the first UK party to accept crypto donations, drafted legislation to cut taxes on crypto profits, and proposed that the Treasury hold a crypto reserve. Farage has said he wants to 'bring crypto in from the cold'.
Gawain Towler, Reform's board member, says Farage's interest in crypto dates back to early 2019, when Harborne arrived on the scene. Harborne took a desk in the Brexit party's campaign headquarters, bringing four screens for crypto business and a fridge for gin and tonics.
In February 2020, with Brexit done, Harborne's donations stopped. His sister Katharine, a Conservative councillor, had defected to the Brexit party and died of cancer in 2021. Emma Nicholson, a Conservative peer, says, 'The Conservative party worked hard to cultivate his donations. But he's not a person who can accept stability. He's a breaker. I think Nigel is mad to accept his money.'
Despite its $10bn annual profits, Tether has never published full accounts or an audit of its reserves. Its founder, Giancarlo Devasini, is a reclusive former plastic surgeon who struck a plea bargain on a software piracy charge. Harborne is not an executive but has a 12% stake in Tether.
In 2019, as the New York attorney general investigated Tether, Harborne wired his first donation to Farage's party. His lawyers said connections should not be drawn between their dates and 'unrelated events'.
Harborne's donations to the Conservatives also seem timed oddly: £500,000 in February 2022, just after the Partygate investigation; the same amount in May as the Tories lost councillors; and again in September after Truss's fiscal meltdown. Boris Johnson became a crypto booster as prime minister, announcing measures to make the UK a global hub for cryptoasset technology.
When Rishi Sunak became prime minister, he gave every indication of perpetuating pro-crypto policy, but the FTX collapse sent crypto prices tumbling. Farage remained a crypto guy, and in late 2022 he flew to Thailand for Harborne's birthday.
At Kamalaya, Farage and his entourage eschewed the juice menu, opening wine instead. Harborne was filmed by the pool posing as a barefoot James Bond. The gathering included Farage's pollster and George Cottrell, a young aristocrat who spent eight months in a US prison for wire fraud. Cottrell has been alleged to have a financial interest in Tether.bet, a gambling site.
Harborne's donations to Reform resumed in 2024 after a pause. He paid for Farage's trips to the US for the Republican convention and Trump's inauguration. Trump has since appointed crypto-friendly officials, and Tether appears unlikely to face US scrutiny.
Labour MP Phil Brickell raised concerns about Harborne's funding, noting the NCA's investigation into Tether for money laundering linked to Russia. 'Red flag, red flag, red flag,' he said.
Starmer's government has announced a ban on donations over £100,000 by overseas donors, but loopholes exist. Harborne could come home, but Labour scrapped the non-dom regime, meaning he may have to pay UK tax if he wants to continue funding Farage.
Another crypto billionaire, Ben Delo, who was pardoned by Trump, has given £4m to Reform and called for building a 'war chest' to win back the country.
