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Arron Banks ‘hired private detective’ to target reporter
Published 11:41 9 Aug 2026 BST
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'When you live by the sword, you die by the sword’
Arron Banks is alleged to have hired private investigators to look into a Sunday Times journalist who broke a series of stories about Nigel Farage, in a claim that emerged this week and which the Brexit campaigner did not appear to deny.
What Arron Banks said
The prominent Reform UK member is said to have instructed Precision Risk and Intelligence, a firm he once owned, to examine Gabriel Pogrund, editor of the paper’s Insight investigations team.
The detail was first reported in the New Statesman on Friday.
Pogrund is believed to have been targeted after a Sunday Times story last month revealed that Farage had received financial support from a convicted criminal.
The Sunday Times and other outlets have run a series of reports into Reform UK’s finances in recent months.
Asked directly whether he had paid investigators to look into the reporter, Banks replied: “When you live by the sword, you die by the sword.”
The Sunday Times denied its stories were based on illegally sourced information and described placing a journalist under surveillance as “reprehensible”, as reported by the Guardian.
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