Money Rolls In
Before 2018, Mr. Robinson had mostly relied on small donations from his working-class supporters in Britain, but the sudden attention from the United States opened floodgates for new money.
An analysis by The Times of Mr. Robinson’s financial records, as well as publicly available information, suggests that he has brought in at least $2 million since 2018. He raised some money himself — including by selling his gated home north of London for $1.1 million (810,000 pounds) — but other funding came from generous international supporters. Between March and May of that year, Mr. Robinson received nearly £435,000 from supporters, many in the United States and Canada, according to Caolan Robertson, a former associate of Mr. Robinson who provided a screenshot showing the account balance from this period.
He said that Mr. Shillman paid roughly $7,000 a month, for a year, through a right-wing Canadian media outlet called Rebel Media, and that Alex Jones, the host of Infowars, “transferred $20,000 to us every now and then to buy cameras and kit and grow our content.”
Bitcoin analysis also shows that Robinson received more than $60,000 in small donations between 2018 and 2020, according to John Bambenek, a computer security researcher.
Mr. Dowson, the far-right activist and fund-raiser, said Mr. Robinson once told him that he could introduce him to people in the United States “who would give us £300,000 to provoke and stir up hate against Muslims.” Mr. Robinson denied saying this.
Recently, questions have been raised about what Mr. Robinson has done with his money. None of the 10 companies linked to him in Britain have ever filed financial statements, despite legal requirements. Only two remain active and Mr. Robinson used his wife’s name, or aliases, to run many of them.
In 2014, Mr. Robinson was jailed for 18 months for mortgage fraud and more recently, in March, he was accused by his former associate Mr. Robertson in a report from the news outlet The Independent of using donations to pay for prostitutes and cocaine, which he denied.