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Farage Allies Build Crypto Ties in Montenegro

Financial Times Markets •
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Allies of Nigel Farage have established corporate footholds in Montenegro as Prime Minister Milojko Spajić pushes to make the Adriatic nation a crypto hub targeting nearly a third of GDP from digital assets. Christopher Harborne, the crypto billionaire whose £5mn gift to Farage triggered a parliamentary standards probe, registered Longevity Biotech Systems in Tivat weeks after Spajić's Europe Now! party won the 2023 election. Reform UK board member Gawain Towler and former party treasurer Mehrtash A'zami also incorporated entities in the coastal town, while longtime aide George Cottrell — previously jailed in the US for fraud — has operated a Private Family Office there since 2020.

The convergence centers on regulatory arbitrage. Spajić, an early investor in the collapsed Terraform Labs, champions crypto-friendly rules, while Reform UK advocates a "Big Bang 2" overhaul to position Britain as a rival hub. Harborne, a significant Tether investor who has lobbied for the industry, is Reform's largest donor. Montenegrin authorities confiscated a crypto-to-cash machine at Cottrell-linked casino Salon Privé in June 2023, citing inadequate regulatory frameworks — a gap Spajić's government aims to fill.

Allegations of opaque political financing cloud the picture. Former justice minister Andrej Milović claimed Cottrell secretly funded Spajić's campaign; Cottrell's lawyers deny this and attribute accusations to a disinformation campaign. Meanwhile, a YouGov poll shows 73% of Britons now view Farage as sleazy, including 40% of Reform voters. With Montenegro's next election due by June 2025 and Geostrategy hiring in Podgorica, the nexus of British right-wing politics and Balkan crypto ambition warrants scrutiny for regulatory capture risks.