Farage’s Wheel of Fortune

Who Really Attended Reform UK Conference?

Nigel Farage presents Reform UK as a grassroots rebellion against the political elite. But the party’s 2025 Birmingham conference told a different story. The event was powered not by ordinary people but by a line‑up of big sponsors: tobacco multinationals, airport duty‑free operators, crypto ventures and gold dealers. Heathrow Airport even hosted a VIP business lounge where lobbyists and executives networked, while banners for tobacco firms and bullion traders hung across the halls.

This image of “populist” insurgency on behalf of the common man falters beside the facts. As the London Review of Books reported from the conference floor, hundreds of Reform delegates queued under union flags and Farage banners, but the biggest exhibition “was selling gold bullion” with a grinning Nigel Farage urging people to “Protect your wealth in uncertain times.” The gold dealer Direct Bullion had even paid Farage £280,000 to record promotional ads on GB News. Nearby, another exhibitor handed out chocolate “gold coins”, explaining, off the record, that gold was ideal for hiding money “from the prying eyes of banks”. In other words, wealth hedge funds and gold scams were on prominent display.

Large Western tobacco firms were also heavily involved: JTI’s name featured on a Reform panel about high streets, while a pro-smoking NGO (“Forest”) sponsored an event on legalisation of substances. Even the airport sponsors were no accident: Heathrow Airport “has had a significant presence” at party conferences for years, and its travel-retail arm sells vast quantities of cigarettes and vaping products. Farage himself is a chain-smoking opponent of the smoking ban, and has taken hundreds of thousands from gold and tobacco firms. In short, this was not a meeting of ordinary workers – it was a corporate summit dressed up as populism, attended by lobbyists, think-tanks and even state-backed entities (the Government of Gibraltar, a known tax haven, formally sponsored the conference).

ANDS Group & Offshore Duty-Free Networks

One of the most important money streams came from duty‑free and travel‑retail, led by the opaque Dubai‑based ANDS Group. ANDS sells vapes and heated‑tobacco devices in airports from Casablanca to Riyadh, but its corporate structure disappears into Dubai and Caribbean shells. Behind the scenes, former Heathrow executive David Roach, a long‑time tobacco lobbyist and Farage ally, worked with ANDS. His lobbying firm ran nicotine campaigns and provided links between Farage’s politics and the vaping industry. Heathrow itself, which controls duty‑free concessions, also sponsored the conference. Together they created a direct bridge from airport retail and tobacco interests into Reform UK.

Big Tobacco – PMI, JTI and the Russian Connection

Cigarette makers were front and centre. Japan Tobacco International (JTI), which remains Russia’s largest tobacco company, co‑hosted a panel on high streets even as it continued to pour millions into Moscow’s tax base. Philip Morris International (PMI) also featured: its profits in Eastern Europe surged before the invasion thanks to booming sales in Russia and Ukraine. At the same time PMI sought to polish its image by donating medical gear to Ukrainian police forces – a gesture the Kyiv Post described as illegal PR. Farage has long opposed smoking bans and welcomed JTI’s presence. The reality is that Reform’s anti‑regulation stance is financed by cigarette taxes flowing out of Russia and by PMI’s attempts to embed itself in state structures.

Farage’s new campaign arm Action on World Health (AWH) is closely tied to the nicotine products industry. A recent investigation found that AWH’s co-founder, David Roach, runs a lobbying firm that also provides secretariat services to a global nicotine advocacy group and that has “lobbied … on behalf of a vaping company called ANDS”. AWH’s own manifesto explicitly opposes “excessive regulation” of vaping, arguing that adults should be trusted to use products deemed “95% less harmful than smoking”. In other words, the group’s rhetoric mirrors exactly the tobacco/vaping industry’s script on “sovereignty” and “choice,” suggesting the campaign is effectively a front for commercial nicotine interests.

GB News, the channel fronted by Farage, has similarly amplified tobacco-industry narratives under the guise of journalism. In August 2025 GB News ran an “undercover” report on Britain’s illicit tobacco trade, explicitly produced “working alongside tobacco giant Philip Morris International”. The team was led by Will O’Reilly, a former Met Police detective now serving as a PMI consultant, and easily bought counterfeit cigarettes in Birmingham stores.
This exposes how PMI funds and experts are being used to frame the illicit-trade debate on Farage’s media platform. By casting an industry PR campaign as a news investigation, GB News delivers tobacco-industry talking points (like boosting the “illicit trade” scare to fight packaging laws) directly into political discourse.

Big tobacco also moneyed Farage’s own party events. At the Reform UK conference in 2025, Japan Tobacco International sponsored a panel on “revitalising the high street” – a thinly veiled nod to vape-shop owners – and Forest (a smokers’ rights NGO funded by PMI/JTI) hosted a session on “The Politics of Prohibition”. Even Heathrow Airport (which has Dufry/World Duty Free concessions through 2029) sponsored the business lounge at the conference. In effect, the entire travel-retail value chain – airport landlord (Heathrow), concessionaire (Dufry/World Duty Free), tobacco manufacturers (JTI/PMI via Forest), and a sympathetic politician (Farage) – formed a lobby bloc pushing against tighter vape/tobacco rules.

The upstart vaping firm ANDS sits at the center of this coalition. Industry reports note that Dubai-based ANDS has struck distribution deals to push nicotine products into Middle Eastern, North African and “global duty-free markets”. ANDS Globe UK is now bringing a single-use vape (branded SLIX) into Britain. The company publicly targets roughly $500 million in revenue within a few years – a scale that would normally require major hidden financing or guaranteed distribution deals. Crucially, ANDS’ strategy relies on airport duty-free channels. For example, Heathrow’s duty-free shops (operated by Dufry’s World Duty Free through 2029) already stock ANDS products like SLIX. This creates a powerful travel-retail lobby: airports and their concessionaires plus nicotine brands all united on a “traveller choice”/harm reduction narrative against regulation.

These business ties are reinforced by political access. the new Vaping APPG (All-Party Parliamentary Group) is backed by a vape trade association, echoing past patterns. Previous UK APPGs on vaping took “benefits in kind” worth tens of thousands from the UK Vaping Industry Association, whose board includes big tobacco firms (JTI, BAT, PMI, etc.). The new APPG officially disclaims tobacco funding, but its agenda, on flavours, nicotine pouches and disposable vapes – largely aligns with PMI and JTI interests.

Overall, the evidence paints a picture of intersecting interests: Farage’s political and media platforms, ANDS’ corporate ambitions, and PMI/JTI strategies all converge to undermine strict nicotine regulation.

Red-Flag Summary

Farage’s AWH partners with a nicotine lobbyist who lobbied for ANDS; GB News aired a PMI-led “investigation” into illicit tobacco; Reform UK’s 2025 conference featured JTI, Forest and Heathrow sponsors; ANDS is pursuing a duty-free growth strategy under Dufry/World Duty Free’s Heathrow concession; and parliamentary vape groups are heavily industry-aligned. These links suggest a coordinated Farage–ANDS–PMI–GBNews nexus driving pro-industry messaging.

Crypto & Zebec Technologies

Reform also opened its doors wide to crypto firms, campaigning on bitcoin donations and promises to deregulate tokens. One sponsor was Zebec Technologies, a blockchain payment startup.

On the surface Zebec touted itself as a decentralised payroll/payments protocol. In practice, its ownership is buried offshore. Public records show Zebec is ultimately controlled by a company registered in the British Virgin Islands (and likely Cayman Islands as well), not by named UK executives. As the Observer noted, this “appears to be in breach of UK company law” requiring transparency. Yet Farage had Zebec front and centre, the company sponsored a fringe debate on the first 100 days of a Reform government.

Zia Yusuf, enthusiastically fanned the crypto flame: he shared a Birmingham stage with Stani Kulechov of Aave Labs (a $10bn DeFi firm), even while publicly claiming he personally held no crypto. In fact, many at the conference privately noted that Yusuf himself is the network’s figurehead. Yusuf, who abruptly became Reform chair in 2024, has poured his own millions into the party and rubs shoulders with crypto investors. DeSmog Magazine calls him “the butler to the international elite,” someone who catered to billionaires before Reform. His new role echoes that old clientele: attending Reform’s crypto panels, Yusuf has the trappings of an oligarch’s fixer. One industry watcher told us wryly that everyone at the conference “knew Yusuf was the face of this crypto-money network,” despite his claims otherwise.

In short, the “blockchain revolution” on display was intertwined with the same shadowy offshore finance: Zebec’s Cayman/BVI shell companies moving money without clear trace, and Yusuf – an ex-Goldman banker with a £30m sale under his belt – bridging the gap from crypto to Farage.

A £50k Mystery: Zebec Technologies at Reform UK’s Conference

Zebec Technologies plc emerged as a curious presence at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK conference less than a month after it was formed. Companies House records show the firm was incorporated on 6 August 2025 with just £50,000 in share capital. On the same day it opened, Zebec listed a single controlling shareholder: Zebec Group Holdings Ltd, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. Yet by early September, the almost brand-new UK PLC was already sponsoring events at Farage’s Birmingham gathering. Zebec’s name appeared on a panel entitled “Strengthening the Rule of Law: Legislative Reform”, billed alongside other crypto firms like Aave, even as tobacco giants (for example, Japan Tobacco International) sponsored nearby fringe sessions. It was a striking mix: a tiny company backed by hidden offshore money rubbing shoulders with big tech and big tobacco at a high-profile political event.

The company’s own filings add to the intrigue. Official documents confirm that Zebec was set up on 6 August 2025 with a £50k statement of capital, and immediately declared its sole person of significant control to be the BVI-based Zebec Group Holdings Ltd. Under UK law companies must normally disclose their ultimate owners, and observers note that hiding behind an anonymous offshore parent “appears to be in breach of company law”.

In short, on paper Zebec looks like a UK shell company fronted by an opaque foreign owner. Curiously, almost as soon as it existed, Zebec was fronting policy panels at Reform UK, raising questions about whether it was created for a genuine business purpose, or simply to funnel money and influence into politics.

Those questions deepen when one looks at who runs Zebec. Its only listed director since day one is Nicholas C. Andrews, a British financier with a track record in both high finance and crypto. Andrews was a director of Binance Markets Ltd (Binance’s UK arm) from 2015 until 19 August 2020, and before that he sat on the board of Wells Fargo Securities International Ltd (2011–2020). Notably, leaks from the Paradise Papers show Nicholas Andrews and his wife are linked to a Malta-registered entity, Compliance (Malta) Holdings Ltd, suggesting a background in offshore corporate setups. (Zebec’s other founder-director, Nealesh Padhye, is an American appointee, but he too was named on the August 6 filings.) In other words, the company was effectively pre-staffed by people with exactly the sort of compliance and director credentials one finds in corporate service providers, a “professional director bench” accustomed to international financial structures.

Taken together, the picture is one that sets off alarms for some anti-corruption watchers. As one source quoted in The Observer cautioned, “crypto is the wild west of finance right now, so it’s particularly important for consumers to understand who’s behind firms offering products in this space”. Here we have a new UK-listed entity, capitalised with a modest £50k, owned by a secretive BVI company, and immediately ploughing in as a political sponsor. Investigators have asked pointedly whether any of that capital might have gone to fund Reform UK or its conference – though no proof of that has emerged. Reform officials have not disclosed any payment from Zebec, and the company itself has only said it believes its structure is “compliant” (a spokesperson quoted in The Observer). Nevertheless, the timing and set-up are certainly curious. Is Zebec a genuine crypto startup now backing policy panels with its own money, or is it a shell used to inject funds into politics under the radar? There are as yet no allegations of illegality, but the arrangement has sparked calls for greater transparency. As Transparency International’s Steve Goodrich put it, narrow exemptions aside, UK firms are supposed to name their real owners, a rule that Zebec’s filings seem to circumvent.

Zebec: Red Flags at a Glance

• BVI parent controls UK plc

• £50k founding capital aligns with possible political spend

• Appeared at Reform UK conference <1 month post-incorporation

• Director Nicholas Andrews linked to Binance, Wells Fargo, and Malta offshore structures

• Co-director network suggests corporate services pattern

• No proven wrongdoing, but structure raises transparency and influence concerns

Gibraltar, Gambling and “Gold” Shells

The cast of sponsors extended into Gibraltar’s gambling and gold‑selling sector. Gibraltar, often criticised as a tax haven, officially backed the event. Exhibitors such as Direct Bullion plastered Farage’s face on gold‑bar adverts, while others handed out chocolate coins as props for wealth‑protection pitches. These schemes looked more like daytime‑TV scams than serious investments. Pensioners and Reform delegates were told to ‘protect’ their savings through offshore gold and gambling outfits – businesses rooted firmly in Gibraltar’s opaque financial world.

Yusuf – The Oligarch’s “Butler”

The most unusual figure was not a company but Reform’s own chairman, Zia Yusuf. A former Goldman Sachs banker who sold his luxury concierge app for £30m, Yusuf had made a career serving billionaires, arranging Oscar parties, private flights and submarine trips. Now he fronts a party railing against elites. At the conference he moved easily between blockchain panels and investor meetings, acting less like a grassroots leader and more like an oligarch’s fixer. His presence underlined that Reform’s money and direction remain tied to the super‑rich.

The Big Picture

Taken together, the evidence is stark. Reform UK’s Birmingham gathering looked like a corporate roadshow dressed in Union Jacks. Tobacco giants with deep ties to Russia, crypto firms hidden behind offshore shells, Gibraltar’s gambling operators, and bullion dealers all bankrolled a party that claims to fight elites. Even Heathrow Airport, dependent on duty‑free tobacco sales, played host. Farage stands at the centre of these overlapping networks. The party’s rhetoric says it speaks for ordinary Britons, but its sponsors show it is underwritten by oligarchic money and global lobbyists. Reform’s ‘people’s revolt’ is in reality a showcase of hidden wealth buying political influence.

In short, Farage’s populist “Britain for the British” conference was bankrolled by offshored wealth. It showcased cigarette companies profiting from Putin’s regime, crypto outfitters flying money through the Caymans, gambling and bullion ventures in Gibraltar, and a millionaire chairman once in service to billionaires. This is not a grassroots uprising at all but a corporate cocktail party on the cheap seats. Behind the chest-thumping patriotism, the real agenda was written in tax havens, gilded lounges, and duty-free flight cases. Reform’s rhetoric is anti-elite, but at its core sits a web of oligarchic money flows, anchored by Farage and his circle, underwriting the movement.

The conference was not a triumph of the “little guy” but rather an exhibition of how the super-rich and secretive industries seek influence in mainstream politics.

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Below is a breakdown of what Reform UK, Nigel Farage, and their sponsors could plausibly have breached or may need to be investigated for 👇

🧾 Electoral Law & Political Funding

⚖️ Relevant laws:

• Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA)

  • Prohibits foreign or non-permissible donors from funding UK political parties.

  • Requires transparency and disclosure for all donations and sponsorships (including in-kind benefits such as conference sponsorships or venue access).

  • Section 54: a party must not accept donations from an impermissible or unidentifiable source.

  • Section 56: requires political parties to verify and report donor identities.

🚨 Potential breaches or areas of concern:

• Zebec Technologies sponsorship:

  • Incorporated August 2025 with sole shareholder in the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction outside UK regulatory oversight.

  • Any sponsorship or in-kind support from a BVI-controlled entity could count as a foreign donation, impermissible under PPERA.

  • If funds flowed to Reform’s conference before donor vetting, that could be a technical breach of s.54–56.

• Government of Gibraltar:

  • Gibraltar is a UK Overseas Territory, not automatically a “permissible donor” unless it donates via a registered UK entity.

  • If it directly sponsored the conference, the Electoral Commission could interpret this as foreign state influence in domestic party activity.

• Opaque sponsor disclosure:

  • If Reform UK did not list each sponsor and amount in their official Electoral Commission filings, this may breach Schedule 7, PPERA reporting obligations.

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💼 Company Law & Anti-Money Laundering

⚖️ Relevant frameworks:

• Companies Act 2006 (Sections 790A–790ZG) – requires all UK companies to disclose “Persons with Significant Control” (PSC).

• Money Laundering Regulations 2017 – beneficial ownership transparency for entities handling political or high-risk financial flows.

🚨 Possible breaches:

• Zebec Technologies plc

  • Lists a BVI parent company as its only PSC, without disclosing the ultimate natural person(s).

  • This appears to breach PSC disclosure requirements, or at least to frustrate their purpose.

  • If funds were moved through this vehicle for political use, that could be a money-laundering risk (concealment of source of funds).

• ANDS / Heathrow / David Roach network

  • The report describes opaque cross-border nicotine and duty-free lobbying through Dubai and Caribbean shells, which could contravene AML/KYC rules if not properly declared or registered under the UK’s overseas entity regime (Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022).

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📺 Broadcasting and Advertising Standards

⚖️ Relevant rules:

• Ofcom Broadcasting Code (Section 9: Commercial References in Programmes)

  • Broadcasters must clearly distinguish advertising from editorial content.

  • Sponsored content by commercial interests must be declared and must not promote tobacco products.

• Broadcasting Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) Code

  • Prohibits advertising or indirect promotion of tobacco products under UK law.

🚨 Potential breaches:

• GB News “Illicit Tobacco” report

  • If PMI funded or co-produced the segment without explicit on-air disclosure, this could breach:

    • Ofcom Section 9.3: concealed sponsorship,

    • Section 9.13: tobacco product promotion,

    • Section 10: misleading or deceptive content.

  • Also potentially conflicts with Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002, which bans any form of indirect tobacco advertising in UK media.

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🏛️ Lobbying & Conflicts of Interest

⚖️ Relevant laws:

• Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 (the “Lobbying Act”).

• House of Commons Code of Conduct / Ministerial Code (for MPs or appointees) if any were involved.

🚨 Issues:

• David Roach and ANDS nicotine lobbying – appears to create a revolving-door conflict between Heathrow (duty-free tobacco interests), ANDS (vape producer), and Reform UK’s policy stance.

• Forest (pro-smoker NGO) – if funded by PMI/JTI and sponsoring Reform events, it should have registered lobbying activity. Failure to do so could breach Section 22 of the Lobbying Act.

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🏦 Financial Conduct and Misrepresentation

⚖️ Relevant frameworks:

• Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA)

• FCA Conduct of Business Sourcebook (COBS)

• Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008

🚨 Possible concerns:

• Gold dealers & crypto panels promising wealth protection or deregulation may have breached:

  • s.19 FSMA: unauthorised financial promotion,

  • COBS 4.2: misleading financial communications,

  • CPRs 2008: deceptive commercial practices (e.g., “protect wealth” claims).

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🕵️‍♂️ Summary Table of Risk Areas

1. Political finance PPERA 2000 Foreign/BVI & Gibraltar sponsorships 🔴 High

2. Company disclosure Companies Act 2006 (PSC) Hidden beneficial ownership 🟠 Medium–High

3. Broadcasting Ofcom Code & Tobacco Ad Act Undeclared PMI sponsorship 🔴 High

4. Lobbying Lobbying Act 2014 Undeclared nicotine/tobacco lobbying 🟠 Medium

5. Financial promotion FSMA / CPRs Misleading gold & crypto claims 🟡 Moderate

6. AML / Transparency Economic Crime Act 2022 Offshore shell concealment 🔴 High

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Further Info and Sources:

Zebec Technologies plc – Key Facts

1. Incorporation vs Conference date: Zebec Technologies plc (UK) was incorporated on 6 August 2025 find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk. The Reform UK party conference took place on 5–6 September 2025 instituteforgovernment.org.uk. In other words, Zebec’s UK entity was formed roughly one month before the conference, aligning precisely with the dates in question.

2. Sponsor payment as donation: Under UK electoral law, paying to sponsor a party conference panel or exhibit is treated as a political donation electoralcommission.org.uk. Only “permissible donors” may make such donations – notably a UK-incorporated company that carries on business in the UK electoralcommission.org.uk. Zebec Technologies plc is indeed UK-incorporated find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk, which meets part of the test, but it must also genuinely operate in the UK. If Zebec plc does carry on UK business, then a £50,000 sponsorship payment (for example) could legally flow to Reform (subject to normal reporting). If it does not, any payment would violate the foreign-donor ban. We find no record of a £50k donation from Zebec in the Electoral Commission’s registers, suggesting any conference fee paid by Zebec was likely treated as a standard commercial exhibitor fee (not recorded as a party donation).

Sources:

• Companies House (Zebec incorporation) find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

• Institute for Government (Reform conference date) instituteforgovernment.org.uk

• Electoral Commission guidance on sponsorship/donations electoralcommission.org.ukelectoralcommission.org.uk
  

Tobacco Further Information

Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum (GTNF)

• Annual, industry-funded conference founded in 2008; positions itself as a “global exchange” for tobacco/nicotine, with rotating host cities. GTNF

• 2025 speaker roster includes Imperial Brands executives and well-known harm-reduction advocates (e.g., Clive Bates), plus lobbying figures like Tim Andrews (Americans for Tax Reform/Tholos). app.nicotine360.org

Reform UK overlap (2024–25)

• Reform’s Sept 2025 conference featured FOREST (smokers’ group) and JTI (Japan Tobacco International) on sponsored panels, classic GTNF-adjacent actors. The Guardian

• DeSmog and others noted the Tufton Street think-tank presence (IEA/ASI etc.), which have long histories intersecting with tobacco policy battles. DeSmog

UKIP/Brexit-era links around Farage

• Nigel Farage publicly backed e-cigs while UKIP took donations from a UK e-cig firm (Pillbox 38) in 2014. The Independent

• Farage’s longstanding proximity to FOREST (pro-smoker lobby) is documented. taking-liberties.squarespace.com

Action on World Health (AWH)

• AWH (Farage co-founder/chair) campaigns against the WHO; co-founder David Roach’s consultancy provides secretariat services in the novel nicotine advocacy world. WHO and investigators flagged nicotine-lobby links and transparency concerns. https://www.actionwh.org/our-team