Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Christopher Harborne, AKA Chakrit Sakunkrita, is a British businessman a technology investor based in Thailand who has "given" £13.7 MILLION to Nigel Farage & Richard Tice's Reform Party, who has a £150 MILLION stake in the Ministry of Defence research spin-off QinetiQ.

https://twitter.com/possiblynotgod/status/1653449231644884996

Harborne’s name came up several times in the #PanamaPapers back in 2018, for acting as an intermediary for large firms - just like he’s now accused of doing with Tether, an asset-backed cryptocurrency stablecoin.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1390369144827166721?s=20

Harborne gave £1M to the Office of Boris Johnson Ltd, a company controlled by Boris Johnson (the biggest donation to an individual MP in UK history) & is now the largest single shareholder in UK defence company QinetiQ, that secured an £80M Govt contract.

opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…

Harborne has been involved in several crypto ventures, including:

Digital Currencies Governance Group (DCGG), a set of UK crypto advocates that listed Harborne as a lobbyist during its first six months.

INSEAD’s Blockchain Research Fund, a blockchain initiative funded by Harborne & created by his former university.

Seamico Securities, a financial services company. Harborne is listed under his Thai identity as a former board member.

Singular AI Consulting Limited, a tech company (dissolved as of October 2022) co-founded by Harborne and Genesis co-founder and CEO, Marco Andreas Streng. In 2016, Streng founded the Logos Fund - the first regulated fund for bitcoin & cryptocurrency mining in the world.

In 2021 it was reported that between April 2019 & February 2020, Harborne "donated" £13.7 million to Nigel Farage’s & Richard Tice's Reform Party, meaning Harborne gave the majority of the party’s Brexit funds — Reform UK only raised £18 million in total.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…

#QinetiQ is a multinational defence technology company headquartered in Farnborough, Hampshire. It operates primarily in the defence, security and critical national infrastructure markets and runs testing and evaluation capabilities for air, land, sea and target systems.

As a private entity, QinetiQ was created in April 2001; prior to this, it had been part of Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), a now-defunct British government organisation.

In February 2006, QinetiQ was floated on the London Stock Exchange.

The privatisation process was subject to an inquiry by the UK's National Audit Office, which was critical of the generous incentive scheme available to the company's management.

In 2007, the National Audit Office (NAO) conducted an inquiry into the privatisation to determine whether UK taxpayers received good value for money, reporting that taxpayers could have gained "tens of millions" more.

The NAO was critical of the incentive scheme given to QinetiQ managers, the 10 most senior of whom gained £107.5 MILLION on an investment of £540,000 in the company's shares. The return of 19,990% was described as "excessive" by the NAO.

The role of QinetiQ's management in negotiating terms with the Carlyle Group (a multinational private equity, alternative asset management & financial services corporation based in the US with $376 billion of assets under management) was also criticised by the NAO.

Carlyle bought a third of the business for £42m, which grew in value to £372m in less than four years.

QinetiQ has completed numerous acquisitions of defence- and technology-related companies, primarily those that are based in the US, and is a trusted supplier to the US Govt.

QinetiQ USA operates under a Special Security Arrangement which allows it to work independently & separately on some of the most sensitive US defense programs despite its foreign ownership.

Harborne's £150 MILLION stake in QinetiQ puts him just behind pensions giants Schroders & BlackRock on the shareholders register for QinetiQ, & the largest individual investor by far. His acquisition comes at a time of increasing scrutiny for would-be investors in arms companies.

Harborne is also the CEO of Sherriff Global Group which trades in private planes, & the owner of AML Global, a firm that sells aviation fuel.

Between April & June 2022, the @Conservatives received £515,000 from Harborne.

desmog.com/2022/09/16/con…

"Cryptocurrency businessman & lobbyist" Harborne hit the headlines again in 2022, when it was reported he'd made a £515,000 "donation" to the @Conservatives just ahead of Rishi Sunak unveiling a plan to make the country a “hospitable place for crypto”. 🤔

uktech.news/crypto/crypto-…

Electoral Commission data showed that two months before then Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s “global cryptoasset technology hub” speech, Harborne, who has established multiple blockchain-based funds & companies, made the £515,000 "donation".

A Conservative party spokesperson responded to Financial News (who first reported the link) by denying any connection between the donation & Sunak's endorsement of crypto technologies, saying “Govt policy is in no way influenced by party donations – they are entirely separate”.🤥