Thread by @MsMariaT

Boris Johnson's friend Jennifer Arcuri is sued for $100k in loan debt mol.im/a/7504103 via @MailOnline

Arcuri based in HB. @ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy.

@ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy When your startup is broke on the books, and yet, you're able to loan 700,000 pounds to yourself:

theguardian.com/politics/2019/…

Hacking voting machines 🙄

...🙄

"Jennifer Arcuri, the entrepreneur whose friendship with Boris Johnson is the subject of a police watchdog investigation, loaned more than £700,000 to her own fledgling technology company shortly before it won a £100,000 government grant."

theguardian.com/politics/2019/…

"It is unclear where the money channelled to Hacker House, a start-up with hardly any income, came from. This adds to the mystery swirling around the American businesswoman [Arcuri] before this week’s Tory conference and raises further questions for the government."

"One person who knew Arcuri was “stunned” to learn that company accounts show her loaning Hacker House £713,354 last year. Other firms set up by Arcuri are in the red or have been dissolved...."

"Her [Arcuri's] main company, Innotech Network, has negative assets of more than £350,000 and she is reportedly being sued in the US over an unpaid $100,000 student loan."

"Questions have now emerged as to how the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport established that the company was viable. The DCMS has admitted waiving a rule that any grant should not exceed half the company’s revenue."

"Arcuri and her husband, Matthew Hickey, orig listed their countries of residence as England & UK respectively in Companies House filings...following questions in parliament about the company, updated filings confirmed that the pair now list their country of residence as the US."

"Hacker House is one of several companies set up by Arcuri, who is now under scrutiny after allegations surfaced that Johnson was once a regular visitor to her flat in London’s Shoreditch...."

"In February this year, the DCMS awarded the firm a £100,000 grant to develop an IT training portal. Arcuri said she was “thrilled” as the money would help it develop new IT professionals...."

"This was a coup for the US businesswoman [Arcuri], who shot to prominence when she persuaded Johnson to speak at a summit she organised in 2012."

Need to go back to 2012, who organized, any congresscritters involved?

"She then attended three overseas trade missions led by Johnson while he was mayor. Johnson appeared at three more of Arcuri’s conferences. Innotech received more than £10,000 in sponsorship from one of the mayor’s funds in 2013."

"That year, Arcuri was awarded £15,000 and a place on the government-sponsored Sirius programme, which encourages foreign entrepreneurs to set up in the UK...."

...According to a 2014 article on tech website Level39, Innotech worked “in tandem with UKTI [UK Trade and Investment] to launch the Sirius programme’s second cohort of graduate entrepreneurs.”

"It goes on: “Jennifer, who has brought Boris to Level39 as part of the Innotech Summit 2013, was keen to share the love when it came to starting up in the UK.”

Johnson has denied suggestions that Arcuri’s companies had preferential treatment because of her friendship with him."

"A spokesman for the Department for International Trade – which took over UKTI – declined to answer questions on the relationship between the trade body and Innotech.

Several inquiries have been launched since the allegations were revealed by the Sunday Times last weekend."

👀

"The Greater London Authority (GLA) has asked the Independent Office of Police Conduct to assess whether Johnson, as a former police commissioner, should face a criminal investigation for misconduct in public office."

Interesting thread re Arcuri. Bannon and Milo make an appearance:

https://twitter.com/nicktolhurst/status/1176845181355732994?s=20

Bannon is ref'd here, but its behind the paywall, and I read my free articles already, lol. Can someone screenshot where he's ref'd?

ft.com/content/ba55c9…

Uh oh. I smell Bob Mercer.

t has also emerged Ms Arcuri’s company hosted a 2012 event during Mr Johnson’s stint as mayor of London, at which Mr Johnson and far-right figurehead Milo Yiannopoulos were the headline speakers."

independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

"Mr Watson said the decision to award funding to a company that had provided a platform for a figure such as Mr Yiannopoulos was “deeply troubling”.

"The event was held shortly after Ms Arcuri first met Mr Johnson, and aimed “to provide a platform to connect investors, tech entrepreneurs and game-changing technologies in order to help develop tech startups throughout the country”, according to its website."

"The same yr, Arcuri founded another company, listed as Title X Tech Ltd, w/Tom Hayes, who later that yr was convicted and sentenced to 14 yrs in prison for his role in the Libor-rigging scandal. Companies House show Arcuri & Hayes were the only dirs of the now defunct firm."

"A report...also revealed the string of foreign trips Ms Arcuri attended along with Mr Johnson in the following years...questions have been raised over the validity of a £100,000 grant awarded to another of her companies... Companies were only eligible if they were UK-based."

"The question is: are they really a UK-based company? If the answer is no, as I suspect it might be, then this may well become a matter for the police.”

Computer says no.

"Mr Watson also said the repeated awarding of funds to a company that had provided a platform for Yiannopoulos was also concerning.

“It is very troubling that Boris Johnson chose to appear at an event w/a far-right figure like Milo Yiannopoulos," by a co that recv'd public $$$.

Stopping for now.

She was waitressing in OC, decided to attend school in London (admirable of course), and ended up a volunteer for Boris Johnson's mayoral campaign in 2012. She turned tech entrepreneur, specializing in hacking. A biz partner was convicted in the Libor scandal.

She obtained public grant funding via Boris, and the events her company held happened to also have appearances by Milo Yiannopolous, who, was brought to the U.S. to cause chaos on U.S. university campuses for years, before he was outed as a pederast, and Mercer pulled the $$$.

Totes normal everyone, nothing to see here.

Ta for now! ✌️🤓

https://twitter.com/peterjukes/status/1178781066896826368

https://twitter.com/YDanasmithdutra/status/1179086055447973888?s=20

Tagging in some other threads.

https://twitter.com/StillDelvingH/status/1178773768564592640

Anyone in #CA48 come across Jennifer Arcuri in your biz dealings? @ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy ?

@ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy Revealed: Jennifer Arcuri got visa from scheme run by former Johnson official

Exclusive: Whistleblower tells of links between Paola Cuneo, PM and US businesswoman

theguardian.com/politics/2019/…

@ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy "Paola Cuneo, the then director of the Sirius programme, previously spent two-and-a-half years working in a senior post at London & Partners (L&P), the official mayoral promotional agency which Johnson had responsibility for while he was in City Hall..."

Boris was mayor....

@ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy "Cuneo, Arcuri and Johnson attended the same Innotech event in October 2013, two months before the company joined the Sirius scheme."

@ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy "A whistleblower told the Guardian: “Innotech stood out compared to other startups in the programme, which had a much higher potential to scale up … I could not understand why we were giving so much attention and extra funds to Innotech.”

@ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy "[Arcuri] who is at the centre of a conflict of interest row over her friendship w/the PM, beat nearly 2,000 applicants to gain one of 200 sought-after tier 1 entrepreneur visas on the govt’s Sirius programme after Johnson helped promote her firm, Innotech..."

@ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy "...the whistleblower accused Cuneo of showing favouritism towards Innotech and questioned the company’s suitability for a place on the programme given it was simply an EVENTS FIRM rather than DEVELOPING A PRODUCT."

@ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy "There were concerns because those services were procured without opening up the tender to competition and because the invoicing seemed to be irregular. On top of that, we already had a supplier for event management, so this seemed like a duplication.”

@ShannonBrooke01 @Klickedy Whistleblower:

" I could not understand why we were giving so much attn and extra funds to Innotech–in light of the news that has been published last week, I started to make a possible connection. That is why I came out with this info, which I believe to be of public interest.”

Next up:

Boris Johnson refuses to deny alleged affair with businesswoman
[Jennifer Arcuri] probed over public funds

news.sky.com/story/boris-jo…