UK's National Crime Agency Refers Itself for Investigation Over Leaked Reform UK Bank Records

Britain's National Crime Agency has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the country's police watchdog, after Reform UK accused someone inside the agency of leaking confidential financial records on party leader Nigel Farage and deputy leader Richard Tice, according to The Telegraph.

The NCA confirming its own referral on Friday means the agency responsible for investigating serious crime in the UK is now the subject of a formal conduct probe over how private banking data ended up in the press.

What Got Leaked

The records at issue came from suspicious activity reports, confidential filings banks are legally required to submit under UK anti-money laundering rules whenever a transaction looks unusual, according to Express.co.uk. Banks file thousands of these every year. The vast majority go nowhere.

But details from SARs tied to Tice and Farage somehow reached reporters. The Guardian published information on an £80,000 bridging loan that businessman George Cottrell gave in December 2024 to Tisun Investments, Tice's property company. That loan was repaid by February 2025, per Express.co.uk.

Separately, Cottrell's mother, Fiona Cottrell, donated £1 million in June 2024 to Britain Means Business, a think tank run by Tice. Half of that, £500,000, was later passed on to Reform UK and declared to the Electoral Commission, according to Express.co.uk.

The Sunday Times had also reported earlier this month that Farage failed to publicly declare financial support from Cottrell in the year before the 2024 general election, a period when Farage was largely out of frontline politics, according to Breitbart. Cottrell was convicted of wire fraud in the United States in 2017. Reform UK denies Farage broke any rules.

Tice Says the NCA Is the Only Place This Could Have Come From

Tice wrote to NCA director general Graeme Biggar demanding an internal inquiry, arguing the agency is the only body that would have had access to every transaction detail that ended up in print, according to The Telegraph.

Tice says he had no idea any of his transactions had been flagged under the SAR system until The Guardian contacted him, and that reporters appeared to have information spanning multiple accounts and several months of activity.

"This is the first considered response from the NCA and it indicates they clearly have a problem and they are begging for more time before we serve the court papers," Tice said, according to Breitbart. "Now that we have finally got a response, it shouldn't be that difficult to work out whether someone has accessed my files and sent them on, and if so, who. We are outraged and will simply not tolerate this."

What's Actually Proven, and What Isn't

The transactions happened. The SAR system exists and is supposed to be confidential. Information from those reports reached journalists. The NCA itself has referred the matter for outside review, which is a real institutional response, not a dismissal.

What remains unproven: who leaked it, whether it came from inside the NCA specifically as opposed to a bank or another party to the transactions, and whether any laws were actually broken by Tice, Farage, or Reform UK. No charges have been filed against anyone in this story. No IOPC findings exist yet.

SAR data is supposed to be locked down, and that it apparently wasn't, is a legitimate institutional failure worth scrutinizing regardless of which party got burned. If banks and the NCA can't keep suspicious activity reports confidential, that's a problem for every private citizen whose bank flags a large transaction, not just for Reform politicians.

Farage's By-Election

Amid the reporting on Cottrell and a separate £5 million donation from crypto entrepreneur Christopher Harborne earmarked for Farage's personal security, Farage announced he would resign his Clacton seat and stand in a special by-election, letting his constituents decide his political future directly, according to Breitbart and Express.co.uk.

Breitbart's report frames the other major parties' decision not to field candidates against Farage in that by-election as "a blatant attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the voters of Clacton," and cites Dominic Cummings' past prediction that the British "deep state" would move against Farage. Those are characterizations, not established facts. Whether skipping the race reflects bad faith or a strategic calculation by rival parties is a matter of political interpretation, not something confirmed by any source here.

The next question is whether the IOPC finds evidence that someone inside the NCA leaked the SAR data, and if so, who and why. Tice says he intends to pursue the matter through the courts if the NCA's internal process doesn't produce answers. No court filings have been confirmed as served yet.