Firefighters extinguish fire at a forested area as aerial and ground crews continue battling a wildfire in the Cine district of Aydin, Türkiye on July 31, 2026. (Photo by Mahmut Serdar Alakus/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The health harms of climate change are growing faster than the world’s response to them, and in many cases even accelerating.
With less than two weeks to go until the 31st United NationsClimate Change Conference, or COP31, brings world leaders to Antalya, Türkiye to discuss the need to transition away from fossil fuels, nearly 150 international experts warned that climate change brought on by greenhouse gas emissions constitutes a “global health emergency” whose harms are accelerating.
But one top indicator that planetary heating has caused a worsening public health crisis is the extreme heat that was blamed for more than 50,000 deaths across Europe this summer, and which could lead to 450,000 excess deaths in the coming months as the climate emergency is compounded by this year’s “Super El Niño.”
According to the report, annual average heat-related deaths have surged by nearly 36% since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015, securing pledges from governments to draw down fossil fuel emissions, compared to the decade preceding the deal.
More than 70% of the 710,000 heat-related deaths recorded in 2023 were found to be attributed to climate change, and between 2016-23, 68% of the world’s 540,800 heat-related deaths were linked to the warming planet. The previous decade, 55% of deaths caused by extreme heat were blamed on the climate emergency.
“These numbers point to a clear emergency,” said climate health researcher Marina Romanello, the executive director of the Lancet Countdown. “The risks become even more profound when you consider how different hazards interact and compound. At the same time, drought is spreading, and the world is swinging to water extremes, some drying out, while others are flooding.”
“Progress has been too slow, too small, and isn’t reaching those who need it most.”
The report was published less than two months after a glacial collapse killed at least 1,000 people in Nepal and Tibet as it sent sudden extreme flooding down a mountain into a number of towns.
Türkiye, where COP31 is set to begin on November 9, was one place where massive wildfiresspread rapidly this summer, while hundreds of thousands of people in Spain and France were also displaced by fast-moving blazes.
And in August, more than 5,000 square miles of forest burned in the Northwest Territories in Canada, sparking public health concerns when smoke drifted thousands of miles south to the continental United States.
“A decade after the Paris Agreement, our findings are unambiguous: The health harms of climate change are growing faster than the world’s response to them, and in many cases even accelerating,” said Romanello.
Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, head of the climate change and health unit at WHO, said the report “demonstrates that climate action is a health intervention. Cleaner energy, stronger health systems and early warning systems are saving lives today. As countries prepare for COP31, placing health at the center of climate policies can help protect communities, strengthen resilience, and deliver immediate benefits for people’s health and wellbeing.”
The 146 scientists who authored the report noted that strides have been made in some countries in expanding clean energy infrastructure, passing health protection regulations, and preparing health systems for climate-related crises and conditions.
“Progress has been too slow, too small, and isn’t reaching those who need it most,” said Romanello. “That is why we are calling for climate change to be formally recognized as a global health emergency, with health placed at the center of every climate decision.”
The report was released a week after the UN Environment Program warned that achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures is no longer possible, and that world leaders must now focus efforts on ensuring the overshoot is as short-lived as possible.
In the Lancet Countdown, the researchers called on the UN to declare that climate change is a public health emergency of international concern, which could require an international response.
“Priorities,” said WHO, “include accelerating reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, increasing support for adaptation, and expanding investments that strengthen health system resilience.”
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham says ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that he’s delayed the go-ahead for Jackdaw and Rosebank North Sea oil and gas extraction until after the Holborn and St. Pancras by-election – don’t want democracy interfering with Capitalism.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Donald Trump urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
‘So let’s all of us commit to stopping the sleep-walking into a new form of Nazism and by acting together, in unity, we can challenge their narrative’
SOLIDARITY campaigners came together in Cardiff on Saturday in a Unity March through a rain-soaked capital.
The Unity March was called by a coalition of organisations including CND Cymru, the National Education Union Cymru, PCS Cymru and Together Cymru to bring communities together in the face of far-right attacks.
In his address, Your Party leader Jeremy Corbyn thanked the marchers for the solidarity they were showing to the Palestinian people.
He said: “I reckon that between one and two million people in Britain have either attended demonstrations, gone to local events, signed petitions, lobbied their local MP or done something to support the Palestinian people.
“That is almost unprecedented for international solidarity in this country, so well done each and every one of you.”
…
Former Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood spoke about the undercover ITV documentary on Reform UK.
“Many people saw on their TV screens this week what the mainstream far right have been carefully trying to hide,” she said. “We saw elected councillors and officials using language, arguments and imagery similar to that used by the Nazis and turning racism into a badge of honour.
“This language, these attitudes of superiority, this lack of empathy is what led, almost a century ago, to concentration camps.
“So let’s all of us commit to stopping the sleep-walking into a new form of Nazism and by acting together, in unity, we can challenge their narrative and their destination,” she said.
Nigel Farage blames the Muzzies.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
The story amplified recent scandals about the party’s donors, with scrutiny mounting over the funding of Farage and his outfit.
In light of these recent developments, DeSmog has taken a closer look at the financial interests of Reform’s donors, to understand which sectors have been backing the party and why they’re interested in bringing about a Farage government.
Delo and Harborne made their money from the cryptocurrency sector, but DeSmog’s analysis shows that they – and Reform’s other major donors – have business ties spanning far beyond this one industry.
Farage’s party has taken substantial amounts of money from members of the Sunday Times Rich List, fossil fuel interests, the landed gentry, property developers, offshore investors, and has been forced to return large sums to those who aren’t allowed to donate to UK parties.
Meanwhile, campaigners and MPs continue to push Andy Burnham’s Labour government to stop a few super wealthy individuals from bankrolling our political system.
The Major Players
Excluding Reform’s new £72 million windfall, more than 72 percent of all recorded donations to the party since the 2024 election have come from just three people, including Delo and Harborne.
Harborne, who has lived in Thailand for 30 years and is worth £18 billion, is comfortably Reform’s biggest backer, having given £15 million to the party since the last general election (£47 million including his recent donation) and £25 million (£57 million) since the party’s launch in 2019.
Harborne is also responsible for a controversial £5 million undeclared personal gift to Farage prior to the 2024 general election, which is the subject of an investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner.
Delo, co-founder and former executive of the crypto trading platform BitMEX, is behind a further £8 million, while venture capitalist David Grainger has given £1.4 million.
Major donations have also been received from Reform treasurer Nick Candy, and telecoms and fintech magnate Bassim Haidar, who have collectively donated a further £1.7 million since the last general election.
Billionaire venture capitalist Sasan Ghandehari has also pledged to donate millions to the party. Though these sums have yet to materialise, he has already given over £50,000 to Farage personally.
The Crypto Barons
If the new Delo and Harborne donations are deemed to be legal, Reform will have received 90 percent of its funding since the last general election from those with ties to the crypto industry.
Harborne is a shareholder in Tether, the world’s largest ‘stablecoin’ provider, which is based in El Salvador. Tether is currently seeking an injection of private capital that would increase its value up to $500 billion – making Harborne one of the richest men in the world.
The company has ties to Donald Trump’s U.S. administration and has reportedly benefitted from the crypto-friendly policies of his regime.
Delo, meanwhile, is one of the co-founders of the crypto trading platform BitMEX. He was one of those who pled guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations for failing to establish and maintain an anti-money laundering scheme at the company. Delo was fined $10 million and served 30 months’ probation in Hong Kong, before later being pardoned by Trump. BitMEX was ultimately fined £100 million.
But they aren’t the only Reform donors with an interest in the crypto industry. Farage’s backers also include Maria Rost, behind some £130,000 across nine donations to the party, who is understood to be the wife of U.S. crypto investor John Rost, as well as Oscar Townsley, founder of Bitcoin derivatives trading platform A1X, and London-based investor Simon William Smith.
Farage has repeatedly lobbied for the industry, promising to bring about a “crypto revolution” if he becomes prime minister. He announced flagship proposals for unleashing the sector at the Bitcoin conference in May 2025 in Las Vegas, including tax breaks and government support, although the document has now vanished from the party’s website.
Farage also lobbied the Bank of England to drop plans for a state-backed stablecoin, a move that would suit Harborne – his most generous patron – by blocking a rival to Tether.
Reform was until recently the only major political party in the UK to accept donations via cryptocurrencies, having been accused of using a third party to turn crypto into cash and obscuring the original funding source.
Burnham’s predecessor Keir Starmer introduced a temporary moratorium on crypto donations earlier this year, which campaigners say should become a permanent ban.
Since the last general election, 57 percent of its income has been donated by individuals and companies featured in the Offshore Leaks database, which details information about more than 810,000 offshore companies, foundations, and trusts.
A large number of the party’s donors are also international investors – people or companies with significant financial interests abroad. In the second quarter of 2026, prior to the £72 million windfall, Reform received £5 million from 17 different international investors – including a Monaco-based former Lehman Brothers executive, an investment firm in business with the UAE, and a New York-based asset management firm linked to the owners of Chelsea Football Club.
The party has been embroiled in controversy after an undercover investigation by Verbatim Investigations, broadcast by Channel 4 in September, appeared to show the party conspiring to accept donations from foreign sources.
Two of Reform’s most senior figures have now resigned following the documentary, though both deny wrongdoing – as does the party. The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into whether any laws were broken.
Farage has previously said that he wants to win back high net worth individuals to the UK through a £250,000 “Britannia Card” that would allow wealthy foreigners to buy a 10-year residency permit and enter a special tax regime. Labour has called the policy a “billionaires bonanza” and tax experts have estimated it would cost the UK £35 billion over five years in lost revenue.
Fossil Fuel Interests
As reported by DeSmog in April, Reform has received two-thirds of its funding to date, not including the £72 million, from fossil fuel interests. A further £2.4 million has been donated by individuals who have publicly disputed basic scientific facts about climate change.
Harborne owns AML Global, which supplies aviation and maritime fuel to a distribution network that includes “main and regional oil companies”, according to its website.
The price of jet fuel has spiralled since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which would benefit Harborne’s business interests.
Although Harborne doesn’t deny climate science, and recently called the issue an “existential threat”, Reform’s senior figures frequently dispute the contribution of carbon dioxide to global warming and support the mass expansion of fossil fuel production in the UK.
Fellow Reform donor Jeremy Hosking had $440.8 million (around £326.5 million) invested in oil and gas companies via his hedge fund Hosking Partners as of March – an increase of more than 50 percent from the previous three months.
Meanwhile, Reform-controlled councils have been axing net zero commitments and stating their intention to withdraw from climate emergency declarations. Farage has claimed it’s “bonkers” for carbon dioxide to be considered a pollutant.
Property Developers and Financiers
More than half (55 percent) of Reform’s corporate donors are connected to the construction, property, and development industries, which would stand to benefit substantially from the party’s policies. Of the 40 companies recorded as having donated to the party before June this year, 22 were involved in this sector.
Reform’s 2024 manifesto promised to “unleash” housebuilding across the country and “restore landlords’ rights” by reducing their taxes. Reform’s housing spokesperson and deputy leader Richard Tice is a property industry millionaire, having run the Sunley Group, a company founded by his grandfather.
Reform treasurer Nick Candy is also a property magnate, having made his money selling luxury homes to the super rich. Candy recently sold his Chelsea mansion for £265 million – the most expensive residential property in UK history.
The party has also received extensive funding from financiers. Reform’s donors include hedge fund manager Johan Christofferson, who has given £200,000 to the party, the “vulture fund” Greybull Capital, and the disgraced City of London titan Crispin Odey.
Although Farage has threatened to impose higher taxes on banks, he has also promised to deregulate the sector – including by removing regulation introduced after the 2008 financial crash.
The annual Sunday Times Rich List acts as “the definitive guide to the wealth of the UK’s richest people”, cataloguing the country’s 350 most affluent individuals and families. The entries in the 2026 edition share a combined wealth of £784 billion. Nearly a third of them no longer live on the British mainland.
Four of Reform’s donors appear in this year’s list, two of whom appear in the top 10.
Harborne ranks at number six, while the Reuben family – another Reform donor – sits at number two. The Reubens have donated to Reform through a private investment firm – Investors in Private Capital Limited – which is ultimately controlled by Omaha Business Holdings Corp, owned by the family and based in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven.
Reform’s donor list also includes a number of old money backers. Among them is Fiona Cottrell – the daughter of Rupert Watson, 3rd Baron Manton. Under her maiden name, Fiona Watson, she was a former glamour model and one-time girlfriend of King Charles III when he was the Prince of Wales.
Cottrell has given £500,000 to Reform via Britain Means Business, a company owned by the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, and £750,000 directly to the party. The Metropolitan Police is currently investigating the majority of these donations. Cottrell has repeatedly declined to comment when approached by media outlets.
Fiona’s son George Cottrell – nicknamed “Posh George” – is part of Farage’s inner cadre, having been UKIP’s head of fundraising and later Farage’s chief of staff. George, who was previously convicted of wire fraud after being arrested by undercover U.S. agents while attending the 2016 National Republican Convention with Farage, has also provided direct financial support to the Reform premier.
Cottrell helped to fund Farage’s anti-immigration campaign videos in 2023 and 2024, supplied him with security, and allowed the Reform leader to use an office in his five-storey London townhouse, which overlooks Buckingham Palace. Farage didn’t declare these gifts, and falsely claimed that he hasn’t received any support from George since being elected to Parliament.
Another feature of Reform’s fundraising record is the vast number of impermissible donors who have attempted to give money to the party over its relatively short existence.
Reform has been forced to return donations worth more than £295,000, on 83 occasions, since its founding in 2019. Farage’s party had to reject more unlawful donations in 2025 than any other party, including donations from Monaco, Jersey, and Germany. The party ultimately had to give back £200,000, and their benefactors made up 18 of the 23 donors turned away by UK politicians or parties during the year.
Labour’s Response
Labour is in the process of introducing a new law that would set a £100,000 annual limit on the amount that foreign donors can give to political parties.
It’s unclear if Delo and Harborne’s latest donations will fall foul of the new rules, which are currently being debated by Parliament – given they have, at least until recently, been living in Hong Kong and Thailand respectively.
However, in the meantime, campaigners and MPs are urging Burnham’s administration to strengthen the legislation by introducing a £100,000-a-year cap on all donations – including from those based in the UK.
The government has been facing pressure from the trade union movement not to introduce a blanket cap, which would limit its extensive financial contributions to the Labour Party.
After donating his latest £36 million, Delo said that he wants to create “a level playing field” between Reform and other major political parties. However, the data shows that his and Harborne’s donations would tip the scales heavily in Reform’s favour.
Last year’s accounts for political parties, published by the Electoral Commission, revealed that Labour received £44.6 million, the Conservatives £30.9 million, and Reform £31.9 million. If Reform is able to receive the full £72 million, its 2026 income would likely be far ahead of the other parties.
Delo also cited Labour’s income from trade unions as a reason for his philanthropy. However, since 2020, Labour has received almost £43 million from the unions – whereas, in roughly the same period, Delo and Harborne will have given over £100 million to Reform.
What’s more, trade unions raise money from individual workers’ membership fees. The Trade Union Congress, a federation of trade unions across the UK, represents roughly 6.6 million people.
Speaking at the annual TUC conference in Brighton in September, its leader Paul Nowak said: “The evidence is clear: Reform UK is a party for sale. Nigel Farage is a politician for sale. And given half the chance, they’d sell our country down the river.
“Make no mistake, this is a crisis for our democracy. We cannot allow our political system to be captured by corporate interests.”
He said there was no similarity “between care workers chipping in a few quid a year through their union and a party bought and paid for by billionaires” – adding: “We need a proper conversation about how we clean up our politics that doesn’t push workers to the margins – but does stop the super-rich corrupting our politics.”
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Reform UK 2025 Ltd’s Nigel Farage says it’s probably best to forget to mention that their sposor made his mega-fortune facilitating serioius crime by providing global money-laundering services.Nigel Farage is scathing at the £250,000 cost to the taxpayer of his unnecessary and ridiculous Clacton-on-Sea election campaign that he caused to avoid scrutiny and acccountability for the £5MILLION ‘gift’ that he didn’t declare.
Britain’s record donor made his fortune from a crypto exchange that asked few questions of its customers
In brief
Man who recently pledged £36m to Reform was convicted of failing to maintain proper money-laundering controls, before being pardoned by Trump
The platform demanded little more than an email from customers for long periods and as a result became a lure for dirty money, the US government argued
Delo pleaded guilty to one offence and other allegations, including fraud, were not tested at trial
When Ben Delo handed Reform UK £36m last week to become the biggest donor in British political history, a flurry of articles quickly followed seeking to explain exactly who this so-called “crypto billionaire” was.
Most told some version of the same story: Delo is an Oxford graduate who co-founded the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, became Britain’s youngest self-made billionaire at 34, gave millions to philanthropy and, along the way, fell foul of an obscure US financial law.
By and large, the articles did not dwell on that last part. Delo himself has described his offence under the Bank Secrecy Act as a “spurious blip”.
But US court records we have examined, building on reporting by Democracy for Sale, raise far more troubling questions about the business that made Delo his fortune. The prosecution’s wider case extended far beyond the single offence Delo admitted. Those allegations were disputed by Delo and BitMEX and were never tested at trial.
Documents filed by US prosecutors said Delo’s decisions turned BitMEX into a “magnet for money laundering and criminal activity”. They said the company processed trillions of dollars of transactions for its customers. For much of this time, they were required to provide nothing more than an email address. “No real name or other advanced verification is required,” trumpeted the website.
A document filed by US prosecutors ahead of Delo’s sentencing
The FBI said BitMEX, in which Delo owned almost a third of the shares during the period covered by the case, deliberately kept these requirements loose in order to drive up revenue. Delo personally intervened to help customers dodge restrictions on US trading, prosecutors claimed.
BitMEX generated more than $1.3bn in revenue during the five years covered by its criminal case, with prosecutors describing Delo as a “critical organiser and leader” of the “criminal decision” not to install the required safeguards.
In 2020, the US Department of Justice charged Delo and three other BitMEX executives with violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to maintain proper anti-money-laundering controls. Meanwhile, the US derivatives regulator, CFTC, brought a civil action against the founders and five companies behind BitMEX.
In response to the DoJ’s charges, Delo pleaded guilty to one offence as part of a pre-trial plea agreement in which the US government agreed not to prosecute him over other alleged offences it had investigated. At the sentencing, prosecutors set out this wider case against Delo, much of which was refuted by his lawyers who argued that his role was not compliance-related, but neither case was tested at trial.
Delo’s lawyers told us: “There is no truth in the serious allegation that our client was guilty of the types of improper, unlawful or criminal conduct that the DoJ crowed about but did not even try to prove.
“The prosecutors’ unproven references to money laundering, sanctions evasion and fraud were irrelevant to the charges brought against Mr Delo and were put forward purely for prejudice and no attempt was even made to evidence or otherwise substantiate them in court.”
Reform UK and BitMEX did not respond to our requests for comment. Nor did co-founder Arthur Hayes, whose own defence relied on similar arguments to Delo’s.
Delo, the “D” in BitMEX parent company HDR Global Trading, co-founded the company in Hong Kong in 2014 and, as chief operating officer, built and oversaw the exchange’s trading software. US regulators later said all three founders worked together on critical decisions.
After receiving a pardon from Donald Trump in 2025, Delo said “a legal wrong has been righted”, claiming he and his co-founders had been “sacrificed for political reasons”, referring to the Biden administration.
While Delo’s “crypto billionaire” label comes from the value of his stake in BitMEX during its height, the size of his wealth today is much less clear.
The current rules governing political donations are clearly not fit for purpose
Tim Picton, Spotlight on Corruption
But certainly the company described by prosecutors as a “platform for money-laundering” made Reform’s largest donor extremely rich. Prosecutors said he and his two co-founders each withdrew between $100m and $150m in dividends between 2014 and 2020.
Tim Picton, senior advocacy adviser at Spotlight on Corruption, told us: “Political parties should be required to check a donor’s source of funds before accepting any large sum of money.
“In the age of mega donors who have derived their wealth from loosely regulated sectors such as crypto, this is urgently needed alongside a cap on donations.”
Before BitMEX even launched, its founders were discussing how much they really needed to know about its customers. The answer, initially at least, was as little as possible.
“Basically just valid email address until we feel significant pressure to do otherwise,” said co-founder Arthur Hayes in an internal message to Delo in November 2014. And for years, that was all users needed – with BitMEX’s own website advertising this fact to prospective customers.
Prosecutors argued that without knowing who was behind an account, BitMEX was ill-equipped to check whether the bitcoin flowing through it belonged to an ordinary trader, a hacker, a darkweb marketplace or someone in a sanctioned country. Nor could it report suspicious customers to the authorities.
The upshot, prosecutors said, was that BitMEX became “in effect, a money laundering platform”.
Regulators in the US demand tighter customer ID controls than this – so BitMEX banned US customers. But it also launched what it described as a “hidden service” on Tor, a web system that obscures the user’s location.
A document filed by US prosecutors ahead of Delo’s sentencing
Delo admitted that BitMEX recorded logins from users known to be in the US and “did not immediately act to restrict [their] trading”.
In October 2018, Delo said BitMEX had frozen roughly 2,000 accounts associated with restricted jurisdictions, but not those in the US. When one valuable customer was caught logging in from a US territory, Delo instructed a colleague to “tell them to log in from Canada like they normally do”.
Delo’s lawyers said such examples gave a misleading picture of his wider conduct, producing evidence of hundreds of occasions on which he personally restricted US-linked users. Judge John Koeltl acknowledged that Delo had been “actively involved” in enforcing controls on US customers. He said BitMEX had introduced procedures over time to exclude US customers and “did screen out a considerable amount of business from United States customers”. But he said that “given the admittedly wilful nature of the violation, the crime remains a serious one”.
They said the exchange used distinctive bitcoin addresses, making funds easier to trace, and said BitMEX had an “excellent track record” of cooperating with US law enforcement.
Comprehensive identity checks for all customers were not introduced until 2020, by which point the “significant pressure” Hayes had anticipated had arrived. Prosecutors argued BitMEX had started strengthening controls only after US regulatory scrutiny in 2018; BitMEX disputed this, saying it decided to do so independently in 2019.
The US Attorney’s Office later described BitMEX’s restrictions on US customers as “toothless or easily overridden” in pursuit of its ultimate goal: US money.
At BitMEX’s corporate sentencing in January 2025, Judge Koeltl found that US users accounted for about $2bn in deposits and $155m of the exchange’s revenue.
For years, BitMEX knew remarkably little about many of its customers. It turned out that some of them had good reasons to want it that way.
FinCEN, the US Treasury’s financial crime regulator, identified at least $209m in BitMEX transactions, including from unregistered money services and so-called darknet markets, where drugs and counterfeit goods are bought and sold. BitMEX settled this case without admitting or denying the findings.
Among the criminal customers linked to the BitMEX, prosecutors cited Elliot Gunton, a hacker from Norwich who had been convicted as a teenager for accessing the personal information of thousands of people as part of the notorious 2015 TalkTalk cyberattack. Prosecutors said Gunton had an account linked to BitMEX.
There is no suggestion BitMEX was involved in Gunton’s hacking or that Delo knew who he was.
FinCen found that in October 2018, the company identified more than 40,000 accounts registered in the US; US territories; or US- or UN-sanctioned countries such as Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea or Sudan; as well as people logging in from Quebec. Delo’s lawyers told us that because he was not a US citizen and the companies were not US companies they were not “bound by US sanctions law when acting outside the US”.
Delo also had dealings with Sam Bankman-Fried, years before the entrepreneur was convicted of fraud.
Court papers describe how in December 2018, BitMEX blocked an account belonging to Bankman-Fried’s trading firm Alameda Research over US activity. By then, prosecutors said, it had traded from the US for more than six months without providing onboarding documents and deposited more than $100m into its BitMEX account.
Sam Bankman-Fried was helped by a BitMEX employee to overcome his company’s log-in banMichael M Santiago / Getty
When Bankman-Fried contacted Delo, he was put in touch with an employee who recorded that Alameda was “very appreciative we took care of their US log-in ban this week so quickly”. The employee then encouraged Bankman-Fried to move the account to a non-US entity, settling on the British Virgin Islands, despite prosecutors saying there was “no indication” Alameda stopped logging in from the US.
BitMEX maintained that Alameda supplied BVI incorporation documents and later provided evidence that its authorised traders lived outside the US. At sentencing, the Judge accepted a government calculation that counted Alameda’s deposits as coming from US customers, rejecting BitMEX’s broader challenge to the way US customers had been identified.
Prosecutors said the episode showed BitMEX knew US crypto traders could easily circumvent its restrictions.
When BitMEX itself pleaded guilty to the same breach of the Bank Secrecy Act in 2024, US attorney Damian Williams said the absence of meaningful anti-money laundering controls had opened the exchange up as a “vehicle for large-scale money laundering and sanctions evasion schemes”.
BitMEX’s issues with regulation were not confined to its dealings with its customers. As a crypto company, it had a banking problem.
So in 2015, the prosecution alleged, it acquired a Hong Kong company called Shine Effort before quickly transferring it to Delo for $1. Although Delo owned the company on paper, they said, he was holding it on behalf of the true owner, BitMEX.
Assisted by Hayes, Delo opened an HSBC account in Shine Effort’s name. Prosecutors alleged that he and Hayes presented Shine as an independent IT company.
Documents filed by the US attorney against BitMEX
Sentencing papers filed by prosecutors even allege that he, Hayes and another executive doctored internal BitMEX documents to present to the bank. More than $100m subsequently passed through the account.
The US Attorney’s Office later described the arrangement in starker terms. It said BitMEX, as part of its “willful evasion” of US anti-money-laundering laws, had lied to a bank so it could “pump millions of dollars through the US financial system”.
BitMEX, through its lawyers, told the court that it denied these allegations and the claims were never tested at trial. Under Delo’s plea agreement, prosecutors agreed not to bring bank- and wire-fraud charges relating to alleged misrepresentations to HSBC. Judge Koeltl said he would not consider the Hong Kong bank conduct at BitMEX’s sentencing as he believed it “too tangential” to the case; he did not rule on whether it happened.
In February 2022, Delo pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act by wilfully failing to establish the required anti-money-laundering programme at BitMEX.
Delo admitted knowing Americans were trading on BitMEX, knowing this required the exchange to identify its customers and knowing its existing controls were inadequate. When asked by the judge whether he knew at the time that what he was doing was “wrong and illegal”, Delo replied: “Yes, your honour.”
He admitted that he had not acted “quickly enough or effectively enough” to stop US customers illegally using the exchange.
“It was a terrible decision, the consequences of which I have to carry the rest of my life,” he told the court.
His lawyers, however, argued that his principal role at BitMEX was technical and that he was not involved in setting compliance policies. They said he had taken “numerous steps” to deal with problematic customers, including personally restricting hundreds of accounts.
Judge Koeltl accepted that others had “more responsibility over the company’s marketing and compliance functions than Mr Delo”, BitMEX had introduced controls over time and “did screen out a considerable amount of business from United States customers”. But, he added, “given the admittedly willful nature of the violation, the crime remains a serious one”.
Delo told the court that his guilty plea represented a “fair resolution” of the case. He was not convicted of money laundering, fraud or breaching sanctions, and was sentenced to 30 months’ probation and fined $10m.
His financial connection to BitMEX, however, did not end when he stepped down in 2020 after being charged. A 2024 court filing by BitMEX in 2024 said that he and his two co-founders still collectively owned 91% of its parent company, HDR Global Trading.
The following year, a federal judge fined HDR $100m after it pleaded guilty to the same Bank Secrecy Act offence. The money was due on 28 March 2025. On 27 March, Donald Trump pardoned the company and its founders, writing off the fine.
BitMEX settled with the CFTC and FinCEN in 2021 on a “neither admit nor deny” basis, while Delo and the other founders separately settled the CFTC case against them in 2022, each agreeing to pay $10m.
Delo neither admitted nor denied the CFTC’s allegations, except those admitted to in his guilty plea, and his $10m CFTC payment was counted as his $10m criminal fine.
What Delo has called a “blip” was also a period in which his business generated more than $1bn in revenue and paid him, according to prosecutors, more than $100m in dividends.
His fortune is now being used to boost the bank balance – and the election hopes – of Reform.
Delo’s record donation comes as parliament considers some of the biggest changes to political funding rules in years, including a £100,000 annual cap on donations from overseas voters and a ban on cryptoasset donations.
Steve Goodrich, head of research and investigations at Transparency International UK, said political parties relying on funding from a handful of individuals presents a “major corruption risk”.
“No politician or party should leave themselves so dependent on so few sources of funds, especially when one of them has been convicted for serious anti-money laundering failings,” he said, adding that a wider cap would reduce the risks surrounding the source of these donations and “what might be expected in return”.
Picton from Spotlight on Corruption said: “The current rules governing political donations are clearly not fit for purpose. The government must ensure that its new know your donor regime is tightened up to more closely mirror the customer due diligence checks as laid out by anti-money laundering regulations.”
What next?
The Representation of the People Bill, currently making its way through Parliament, would introduce new checks on outsized political donations and a cap on donations from overseas voters
We will continue to report on the crypto money flowing into British politics, contact us at info@thebureauinvestigates.com with your tips
Reporters: Nathaniel Peutherer and Lawrence Marzouk Enablers editor: Lawrence Marzouk Production editor: Alex Hess Deputy editor: Chrissie Giles Editor: Franz Wild
The Bureau has a number of funders, a full list of which can be found here. None of our funders have any influence over editorial decisions or output.
Reform UK 2025 Ltd’s Nigel Farage says it’s probably best to forget to mention that their sposor made his mega-fortune facilitating serioius crime by providing global money-laundering services.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Is net zero pushing up our bills? Ruining British industry? A worthless target? We weighed these claims up against the facts
“This is what climate change looks like, here and now,” Andy Burnham said last month, reflecting on a summer of catastrophic fires, drought and heatwave after heatwave. People were left without water, crops failed and emergency services had their busiest summer ever.
And yet with disaster on our doorsteps – and the government now recommending we stockpile in preparation for future extreme weather – there remains a sustained opposition to the UK’s plan to tackle it all: net zero.
In fact, many have doubled down on “ditching net zero” this summer. And in some fringes this is accompanied by claims that our changing climate has nothing to do with human activity. Let’s be clear: this goes against the overwhelming majority of scientists and scientific study.
We’ve already reported on how this sort of straight-up climate denial is creeping back into UK politics. But what about the softer arguments against net zero, those that appeal to people’s anxieties about the cost of living, job losses and the supposed need for pragmatism?
Many of these are also based on fallacies and falsehoods – some of them warping the scientific concept of net zero into something different altogether. Let’s dig into some of the most common myths out there.
‘Net zero is a made-up term’
The UK became one of the first major economies to bring net zero into national law in 2019, under Theresa May’s Conservative government. In a nutshell it means reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 100%, from 1990 levels, by 2050. The “net” part is that some emissions may still exist but are balanced out by removing emissions through carbon sinks, such as tree planting, or technology.
It’s a legal commitment enshrined in an amendment to the 2008 Climate Change Act, and it is based on rigorous climate science.
And yet one of the more common narratives online is that net zero is some arbitrary idea, a figure plucked out of thin air to make us poorer, colder, and plunder our economy. Reform MPs regularly refer to “net stupid zero” and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has called it “political fiction”. Conservative MP Andrew Bowie, who acted as May’s parliamentary private secretary when the target was brought in said in an interview with Politico last year: “What’s quite clear is that the setting of arbitrary targets with no clear plan on how to deliver them does not work for the country.”
Professor Myles Allen from Oxford University is one of the leading scientists on net zero, and has worked on the need for a finite carbon budget for over 20 years. “When I hear politicians saying, ‘I’m not a climate denier, I’m a net zero denier’, that doesn’t make any sense,” he told us. “The implication of that, obviously, is, ‘I’m comfortable with the world warming forever.’”
Key fact: Net zero by 2050 is a legal commitment, rooted in physics and atmospheric science, based on a finite carbon budget to stay within 2 degrees of warming.
‘Net zero is sending our energy bills through the roof’
Energy bills are extremely high, and set to rise further next month when the price cap increases. We are all feeling this. And many – including Reform in its election manifesto and Restore Britain’s energy policy paper – blame net zero for pushing up prices and “crippling our economy”.
But the main culprit has nothing to do with net zero.
Wholesale gas prices – the sums paid by our suppliers when they buy gas in bulk – have skyrocketed since the Iran war. In the last year, they have more than doubled. And our bills, which include a unit cost based on that wholesale price, have risen accordingly. Depending on where you live and the tariff you’re on, you’ll be paying around 7p per kilowatt-hour this September.
But what about electricity – surely that’s unaffected by price shocks in the gas industry?
This is where a concept called “marginal pricing” comes in. It’s a principle of all commodity markets, and it’s where the last available technology sets the price for what all energy suppliers receive. So if all of the UK’s energy demand is met by renewables suppliers (the cheapest option), it’s renewables setting the price. But if renewables aren’t being offered on the markets, or if demand is high, then it’s more expensive options – like gas – that set the wholesale electricity price. (Analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit earlier this year found that wind power had reduced electricity prices by over 30%.)
The last part of the bill is the standing charge. This covers network operating costs, the maintenance of infrastructure, debt recovery and VAT. It also includes costs for some government policies such as social or environmental schemes – but this is a small percentage. So yes, our standing charges are helping pay for net zero. But they are mainly going towards upgrading pipelines and cables or claiming back unpaid bills. And they tend to make up between a fifth and a third of the total bill.
Adam Berman, policy director at Energy UK, the trade body for energy companies, explains that network costs have hugely increased because “successive governments have made the decision to finance our electricity infrastructure entirely through bills”. This is instead of “some balance between bills and general taxation which is what almost everyone else across the OECD does”. And it is this difference which makes our electricity bills more expensive than gas when you compare your two bills side by side.
However, he said: “If we hadn’t invested, in five or 10 years we would be close to the water sector, in that you’d have to be doing massive levels of investment”.
Key fact: Sky-rocketing energy bills are due to extremely high gas prices, which make both gas and electricity more expensive.
‘Net zero is destroying British industry’
Jobs are being lost in the UK’s oil and gas sector in the North Sea, and industries like steel have taken a hammering in recent decades. Reform and the Conservatives have put this down to net zero.
While it is true that the oil and gas industry reports staggering job losses – unions say 1,000 direct and indirect jobs are being lost each month – the reasons are complex. For a start, production in the North Sea has largely been in decline since 1999. Many of the wells and basins are reaching maturity, meaning that the fossil fuels are harder and more costly to extract. And as production has waned, so have jobs. (In fact, new research has shown that even in the small windows when production increased, jobs still declined.)
Losing your job can be a traumatic experience. But there is cause for hope: a recent government analysis found that oil and gas workers’ skills will be in high demand in critical sectors including clean power, construction, defence, advanced manufacturing and life sciences. It found that around 70% of oil and gas workers are already employed in occupations identified as a priority for these sectors. (For more on North Sea oil myths see Carbon Brief’s excellent analysis.)
On the other side, jobs in the UK’s renewable energy sector are growing – and have topped 145,000 for the first time according to a recent report.
Key fact: Oil and gas production in the North Sea has been in decline long before Net Zero, and jobs are declining too. However, renewables jobs are growing, and oil and gas skills are highly sought after in other industries.
‘The UK achieving net zero would make no difference anyway’
The UK’s carbon emissions have been in overall decline for decades and now account for less than 1% of the global total.
There are many variations on this myth: from “How will it make any difference?” to “Why should we make an effort when we aren’t as bad as other countries?” Rishi Sunak said it when he was prime minister in 2023. And Reform MP Lee Anderson last year asked in Parliament: “If the UK went net zero tomorrow, by how much would it reduce the Earth’s temperature by?”
Less than 1% does sound very low. However, we are also the 22nd highest emitter in the world; there are over 160 other countries with lower emissions than us.
And if you add together all the countries accounting for less than 2% of emissions, it comes to just under half the global total. If all of them took the “Why bother?” approach, it would write off our chances of a net zero world.
It’s also important to note that while China, the US and India make up the top three (with 26%, 11% and 8% respectively) this doesn’t tell the full story when it comes to emissions per person. China is the 35th highest country for emissions per capita, way behind the US and all the petrostates. The UK is 83rd, putting us roughly in the middle.
Nor does the 1% figure take into account historic emissions. England was among the first countries to industrialise. Our emissions have risen since the mid-1800s, while other countries’ did not until closer to the end of the century. When you look at historic cumulative emissions from 1750, the UK is the fifth worst offender.
A final caveat: when looking at global emissions the aviation and shipping industries are not included. They are grouped together like a separate country and according to 2024 data count for just over 3% of global emissions. So flights taken by British people don’t count towards the UK’s reported emissions. And British people take a relatively high number of flights.
If anything, the 1% figure is obscuring the fact that the UK is in fact an outsized contributor to global emissions. A net zero UK would make a huge difference to the world.
(None of this is to mention the simple argument that we have a moral duty to clean up after ourselves, regardless of the size of the mess – as summarised by this caller to LBC).
Key fact: The UK is a lower emitting country at less than 1% of global emissions. However there are over 160 low emitting countries and if everyone gave up on net zero that’s around 42% of global emissions.
‘Climate change is happening. Let’s just accept it’
Climate change is certainly happening. Forecasters warn of a “super” El Niño into 2027, with droughts, flash floods and extreme heat likely to get worse.
And yet some instruct us to simply look on the bright side and adapt to the changing world. “When it’s a bit warm, let’s enjoy it,” said Reform’s Richard Tice last month. “And if it means that English wine and sparkling wine gets better and better, fantastic.” A fortnight earlier, Sunday Telegraph editor Allister Heath had written a column titled: “Britain can’t stop climate change. Let’s just embrace a Mediterranean lifestyle.”
Pallavi Sethi, a researcher into climate misinformation at the LSE’s Grantham Institute, described the suggestion that we should simply accept climate change and scrap net zero as “dangerous and misleading”.
Reform’s Richard Tice told a press conference that there is ‘no evidence’ net zero would stop climate changeOli Scarff / AFP via Getty
At Jordan Peterson’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London, and most recently Reform’s party conference in Birmingham, participants have raised the need to adopt more air conditioning, like the US.
It is true that we need more money to be spent on adaptation. The Climate Change Committee estimates that we need investments of around £11bn per year of both public and private investment to adapt homes, hospitals, infrastructure and many industries for a changing climate. A recent report states that “the UK was built for a climate that no longer exists today”.
Sethi told us: “Accepting that climate change is happening while giving up on efforts to limit further warming means accepting greater risks, more damage, as well as higher costs in the years ahead.”
However this is not an “either/or” scenario, and increasing temperatures lay bare the increased inequality in the UK. Some people can afford to adapt where they live, installing air con or heat pumps, or planting trees in their garden. Others cannot: they do not have the money, or the agency over Council property or a landlord’s private home. Enjoying England’s vineyards is not for the many.
Key fact: The fact that the climate crisis is already here doesn’t mean we can’t still mitigate it.
Reporter: Grace Murray Deputy Editor: Chrissie Giles Editor: Franz Wild Production Editor: Alex Hess Fact checker: Lydia Morrish
The Bureau has a number of funders, a full list of which can be found here. None of our funders have any influence over editorial decisions or output.
Donald Trump urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham says that he’s going to permit the Jackdaw and Rosebank North Sea fossil fuel projects. He urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. The proof is in the pudding.
‘So let’s all of us commit to stopping the sleep-walking into a new form of Nazism and by acting together, in unity, we can challenge their narrative’
A document filed by US prosecutors ahead of Delo’s sentencing
A document filed by US prosecutors ahead of Delo’s sentencing
Documents filed by the US attorney against BitMEX
