The rusting iron gates and dirty tiled staircase of a nondescript storefront on a quiet, dusty, residential street downtown Tivat, Montenegro, where women hang their laundry out the windows as men drink cold lager and smoke strong cigarettes, offer no clues that its tenants are some of Reform UK’s biggest personalities and backers.
Billionaire crypto investor Christopher Harborne, who has donated £15m to Reform and a £5m “private” gift to party leader Nigel Farage, has his Longevity Biotech Systems firm registered at this address. So do firms belonging to former Brexit Party comms lead Gawain Towler, former Brexit Party treasurer Mehrtash A’zami and Brexit’s digital whizz Samee Bhatti.
The office address that houses their businesses, is registered to Nino Pantovic, the son of a one-time defence lawyer for Posh George, or George Cottrell, a convicted criminal and close associate of Farage’s, who moved to the Balkan country after serving an eight-month prison sentence in the US for wire fraud.
But why are some of Britain’s most controversial Reform-linked figures all operating out of a grubby office in a town of 11,000 people, one awash with Russian – and increasingly US and UK – money? When I knock, the confused-looking woman who answers the door offers few answers.
“We are just an accounting firm,” she says. “They do not live here, they are abroad.”
On Tuesday, increasing scrutiny of Farage’s finances, including revelations published in the Sunday Times that he received undeclared material benefits from Cottrell, prompted the Reform UK leader to angrily resign from his post as MP for Clacton.
“Let me be absolutely clear – I have done nothing wrong,” said Farage, as he announced he would run again for the seat he was vacating. “I have not broken the law in any way at all.”
Yet, months spent combing through company listings, speaking to sources in Montenegro’s gambling industry, crypto industry, business and politics, and a recent visit to Tivat, reveal how, far from the scrutiny of the British public and authorities, some of Reform’s most enthusiastic backers, particularly Cottrell, are spinning themselves a safe haven of shell companies, business interests, crypto, casinos, and property.
