A “personal friend” and former business partner of Nigel Farage was an influential figure in a conspiracy-based cryptocurrency group that was accused of scamming investors out of thousands of pounds.
John Mappin, a Scientologist and proponent of the QAnon hoax, promoted Awoke Coin multiple times on his social media channels, encouraging his followers to invest in the “anti-woke” digital currency.
Mappin, 61, is the owner of the Camelot Castle hotel in Cornwall where he has hosted the Reform leader on a number of occasions. The pair were also briefly business partners in a Scientology-linked carbon offsetting company which Mappin introduced Farage to.
The hotelier is a supporter of the Russian government and corresponds with senior figures in President Putin’s regime, including Kirill Dmitriev who has been leading negotiations with the US over Ukraine.
Mappin, who was educated at Winchester and is a scion of the Mappin and Webb jewellery family, was in 2002 found to have duped Benjamin Pell into handing over £77,500 to finance a bogus Hollywood blockbuster about his life.
A joint investigation by openDemocracy and The Times raises questions about Farage’s decision to associate with Mappin, amid ongoing questions about the politician’s controversial allies.
Sian Norris
Leaked messages show that Mappin was an active participant in a Telegram group that launched Awoke Coin and coordinated its promotion, as well as in a wider group for investors, which at its peak had more than 2,000 members.
Mappin joined the groups shortly after the launch of Awoke in November 2024 and declared that his family were now holders of the coin. Investors welcomed his arrival, describing him as a “huge political figure” whose connections could benefit their movement.
As well as exchanging conspiracy theories members also discussed politics, at one point suggesting that they donate to Reform after Mappin posted about attending the party’s conference in September 2025.
The group encouraged members to invest tranches of $2,500 into a cryptocurrency wallet linked to the coin. Times analysis of a cryptocurrency wallet using specialist software showed that a number of transactions in these amounts were paid into the wallet, which were later then transferred out of the wallet to unknown third parties, through services which can make it hard to follow the money trail.
In August 2025 the coin reached a market cap of almost $6 million (£4.45 million) but a month later collapsed to $25,000, leading to allegations from members that the project had been a “rug-pull” scam.
A rug-pull refers to when individuals hype a new digital token to attract investors, and then withdraw all the funds or sell off their own holdings.
“Many people in here lost thousands of dollars,” wrote one angry member in the group for investors. “Clearly we’ve been scammed,” wrote another. “This was a rug,” wrote a third.
Mappin had exited the Telegram group days before the collapse of the coin’s value.
In response to questions from The Times and openDemocracy, Mappin said that though he was a member of the Telegram group, he “had no role whatsoever in the management, decision-making, or operation of the project.”
He said his reason for joining the group was a “curiosity about this as a cultural phenomenon”, adding that he had “no involvement in any scheme designed to defraud investors. Nor did I profit from any such scheme as I was unaware of one.”
He said that “any attempt to link the timing of my departure to subsequent events is pure speculation and without foundation.”
For a man who runs a hotel for a living, Mappin is unusually well-connected in the world of international politics. In 2017 he met President Trump at a Republican National Committee fundraising event in Washington.
A year later he and his Kazakh wife Irina were involved in setting up Turning Point UK, a right-wing youth movement, which was also supported by Farage and the Duke of Marlborough.
In 2021, Mappin introduced Farage to Dutch Green Business (DGB), a carbon-offsetting company that he and Irina held a 30 per cent stake in. All of the key figures behind DGB were linked to Scientology.
Farage was granted £1 million share options and became chair of the advisory board. However a few months later his advisory position was put on hold owing to a dispute between the board of directors and Mappin and his wife.
The pair have since attended multiple events together, including a 2022 dinner with Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a far right influencer banned from entering the UK due to her extremist views. In May 2025, both attended a VE Day celebration at the Turf Club in London along with the Duke of Marlborough.
Mappin’s biography describes a visit that Farage made to Camelot Castle for lunch, as such: “The atmosphere was cordial but serious, the way old friends speak when business is never far from the surface.”
Mappin hosted a Reform rally at his castle in the run-up to the 2024 general election and also campaigned for Farage at his seat in Clacton.
More recently, Mappin has spoken of donating to Rupert Lowe’s Restore party, however he appears to still support Reform, praising Lowe’s suggestion earlier this month [AUGUST] that Reform and Restore could work together.
He wrote on X that “as someone that has been a supporter of Reform and Restore and has been a personal friend of both Nigel and Rupert for some years I was pleased to note this.”
A spokesman for Farage said: “Mr Mappin is not a close friend nor ally of Mr Farage. In fact, he left the party a long time ago and is now a member of another political party.
“To suggest anything else would be an outright lie. However, we have come to expect nothing less than lies from The Times.”
Mappin and the Kremlin
Mappin has been a vocal supporter of Putin’s regime and in 2024 gave an interview to Russian state television in which he criticised the UK government for sending weapons to Ukraine.
In 2023 he and his wife attended an event at the Russian embassy where he was photographed with Maxim Elovik, the Russian military attache. Elovik was expelled from Britain the following year accused of being a spy.
He has exchanged messages over X with Dmitriev, Russia’s special envoy, and Alexander Dugin, an ultranationalist philosopher often referred to as “Putin’s brain”, whom he interviewed in 2024.
According to his biography, Mappin suggested to Dmitriev that the Russian Orthodox Church bestow a blessing on Charlie Kirk following his assassination, which the envoy made happen.
In the 1980s Mappin worked for LHW Futures, a notorious hard-sell commodity brokerage firm, which was later investigated by the City of London Police Fraud Squad following a series of formal complaints from investors.
The company was subsequently banned from the London markets and was the subject of civil legal actions. Mappin said he left the company well before it ceased trading.
In the 1990s he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting and it was there that he was introduced to Scientology.
Californian company records show that he was also chief executive of two companies both of which were suspended by the franchise tax board. The board usually suspends a corporation for tax-related non-compliance. Mappin said he did not own or control either company at the time of any later FTB suspension and had no responsibility for it.
