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Dark money investigations: what we’ve found out, and why we’re looking

For the past two years openDemocracy has been tracking down the secretive, wealthy donors trying to influence British politics unseen.

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Arron Banks Nigel Farage_0.jpg
Arron Banks Nigel Farage_0.jpg

Arron Banks with Nigel Farage: two of "the bad boys of Brexit". Image, Ben Birchall/PA Archive/PA Images

It started with the Democratic Unionist Party. We forced them to confess that a huge Brexit donation had come via a secretive group in Glasgow. We showed that the chair of that group was connected to the former head of Saudi intelligence and to a Danish man involved in gun-running in India.

We travelled round Northern Ireland and the west of Scotland, banging on doors and meeting sources, but were blocked at every turn. BBC Northern Ireland picked up the story and followed it to Kiev. We still don’t know for sure where this cash came from, but we did help force a change in the law, so this could never happen again.