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Ben Delo, the BitMEX co-founder who was pardoned by Donald Trump last year after a US criminal conviction, has moved back to the UK from Hong Kong with a very specific agenda: pouring money into Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.
Delo announced his relocation on April 8 and has already donated £4 million ($5.1 million) to the party across two installments. That makes him one of Reform UK’s largest individual donors heading into the next general election cycle.
Following the money trail
The £4 million arrived in two tranches. The first £2 million landed on January 14, followed by another £2 million on March 2.
Delo’s relocation wasn’t purely about patriotic homecoming. The Labour government introduced a £100,000 cap on donations from British citizens living overseas. By physically returning to the UK, Delo sidesteps that restriction entirely, freeing him to donate without ceiling constraints.
He’s not the only crypto-minted donor writing large checks to Farage’s operation. Christopher Harborne, another wealthy figure with ties to the digital asset industry, donated £3 million to Reform UK in January 2026. Between just these two donors, the party pulled in £7 million from crypto-linked contributors in the opening months of the year.
From conviction to pardon to politics
Delo co-founded BitMEX, the crypto derivatives exchange that at its peak was one of the most influential trading platforms in the digital asset world. In 2022, US authorities convicted Delo for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. The charges centered on BitMEX’s failure to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls.
The consequences were a 30-month probation period and a $10 million fine. In 2025, Donald Trump granted Delo a presidential pardon, wiping the conviction from his record. That pardon effectively reopened the door for Delo to engage in political life.
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English (US) ·