Tory donor who changed his name and invented eccentric persona accused of pressuring young people into taking out loans

• A man who created an eccentric persona under a second name is accused of pressuring young people to take out loans.
• Paul Edwin Lancelot Thomas Borrow-Longain, a Tory donor, can be traced back to Paul J Langan.

A man who is operating under an elaborate second name is alleged to have pressured at least two young women into taking out loans worth thousands of pounds, an Insider investigation has revealed.

Paul Edwin Lancelot Thomas Borrow-Longain is a Conservative Party donor and member of various linked groups, granting him access to ministers such as Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Foreign Office minister James Cleverly.

Borrow-Longain is a genealogy fan, counts minor royalty among his friends and patrons, and claims to a plethora of honours, including a coat of arms, the Freedom of the City of London, and a knighthood from the defunct Austrian nobility.

But he appears on a poster, promoting a discussion about the future of retail, under a different name of Paul Langan.

Tories branded him 'Borrowed-Longname'

The poster, which dates from 2010 and places Langan in Canada, is corroborated by a Twitter account that matches up with a Companies House account showing businesses with addresses linked to Borrow-Longain's firms.

Langan is also a Conservative supporter, having been the acting chairman of Conservatives Abroad, according to his LinkedIn page.

Two Conservative sources raised their suspicions about Borrow-Longain with Insider, saying such suspicions had earned himself the moniker "Borrowed-Longname" in certain circles.

He runs a string of companies and not-for profits focused on social media, the Commonwealth, and fundraising, including LynxOr Global, Pulsar Studios, Tolo Media, Terrestres Servo Coronas and ADR Technology.

Five former employees and four further sources spoke to Insider on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal and concern about their future careers.

Several said he was working under what they described as a "fake" or assumed name. One confirmed, unprompted, that his other name was Langan. Another source, who has known Borrow-Longain for many years, told Insider he had changed his name after returning from Canada.

Targets: Young, female, Tory

Four sources, three of whom were young women, said Borrow-Longain approached them via social media to encourage them to work for him. The others said they met Borrow-Longain via a friend.

He impressed them with presents and lavish dinners, meetings with ministers or European royalty, and offers to help them with burgeoning political careers, the women said.

In some instances, the offer of a job came with the expectation to invest in a new venture, according to the sources. Borrow-Longain declined to comment on the claims unless Insider named its sources.

One woman, who was 19 when she met Borrow-Longain, told Insider: "He offered me a high-up position in one of his companies… On the grounds of [the job], I ended up taking out a business loan — but what I didn't know is that it was actually a personal loan."

Borrow-Longain ghost-wrote her correspondence to the bank, messages seen by Insider show. He also assured her the investment would be safe.

Including interest, the loan was worth more than £20,000, according to documents seen by Insider. Half of the sum was ploughed into the business, from which Borrow-Longain took "director's expenses", the woman said.

The woman said she still had around £10,000 of the loan when she became suspicious about what the money was being used for, and was able to return it to the bank. She is now paying the rest back in installments.

She told Insider she believes "there is a genre of people he would like to target — young, female Conservatives."

A second woman who was employed by Borrow-Longain said she was pressured to take out a loan to the point of feeling "very uncomfortable". The woman, a non-UK citizen, told Insider the demand was connected to promises of visa sponsorship.

She left his employment after four months and did not take out the loan.

She said Borrow-Longain "would make out that he was high born, from a very high-up aristocrat family", but later came to believe that was not true.

A third individual said she also resisted repeated demands to take out a loan. She said she "witnessed him on several occasions suggesting people take out business loans and invest in startups".

There was an apparent pattern, the source said.

"You take out loan, invest in his company, he makes you COO and charges a big consultancy fee for himself and that is how he takes the money out – and then the money has gone."

Separately, a woman is taking Borrow-Longain to court, documents seen by Insider show. Her claim is that "he stole £3,000 and used a fake persona in order to it," a source familiar with the situation said. The individual could not be reached at the time of publication.

Messages seen by Insider appear to show Borrow-Longain warning of "consequences" after another person backed out of plans to invest.

This time the target was a young Conservative-backing man in the British Army, who was asked by Borrow-Longain to give a tour of Windsor to Karl von Habsburg, a member of Austria's defunct nobility who styles himself an Archduke.

Von Habsburg was in London "because Paul was getting knighted through the house of Habsburg", the source said. He runs a group — the Order of St George — which was founded in 2008 and describes its members as knights. Messages and social media posts corroborate that a ceremony involving Borrow-Longain took place.

Following the tour, Borrow-Longain praised the young man and said he was in line for a knighthood himself, messages show. The young man described Borrow-Longain as the "stereotype aristocrat."

Shortly afterwards, the source says, Borrow-Longain pressured him to take out a £25,000 loan to set up a new business. Again, Borrow-Longain offered to write the documents, the source claims.

"We were meant to discuss the new business in Exeter, but it never came through. He was more bothered about the loan... He was constantly asking when can I get in touch with them [the bank] and sort it out," he told Insider.

However, the man said that after he backed out of the deal, Borrow-Longain's tone changed. Messages seen by Insider show him saying: "Every decision has consequences and this one will have many."

Tory donation, a Covid loan and questions about funding

Another of his firms, ADR Technology, donated £10,000 to Daniel Kawczynski, the Conservative MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham via his "local party organisation or indirectly via a central party organisation", according to his register of interests.

However, the sum, registered by Kawczynski in November 2021, does not appear on Electoral Commission records. It also appears to have been removed from Kawczynski's register in early May, after Insider made preliminary inquiries.

A few months prior to the donation, Borrow-Longain praised Kawczynski for a "very statesmanlike speech" on NATO. The pair met in August 2021, social media posts show.

Kawczynski did not reply to requests for comment.

ADR also received a state-funded COVID-19 Bounceback Loan of £37,500.

Several sources said they were confused about the source of Borrow-Longain's funds; wages were paid by bank transfer only after some prompting, two former employees of two different companies said.

The same employees told Insider that some of his companies would carry out work for each other and that at times they had been asked to transfer money among some of the businesses.

Records from Companies House corroborate some of these claims: ADR Technology's accounts show that it received "consultancy fees" from one of Borrow-Longain's other companies, LynxOr Global, worth £38,896 and a £24,430 fee for software development from Pulsar Studios.

The same accounts show a loan worth nearly £19,500 taken out under personal guarantee by company director Samuel Virgo. Virgo declined to comment to Insider.

LynxOr has received a loan from Tolo Media, another of his firms, accounts also show. TSCSO Estates, again listed under his name, also paid ADR consultancy fees but is owed £1,807 back.

Employed daughter of man with links to Russia's FSB

Borrow-Longain's apparent ambition to ingratiate himself with the Conservative party did not end with Kawczynski.

One senior Conservative source told Insider that Borrow-Longain had also "sought to cultivate" MPs in the Lancashire region – home to BAE Systems. The source said Borrow-Longain had "proposed donations that have never come to fruition".

That source and others asked for anonymity to speak, citing fear of reprisals.

One of those MPs said he had approached them to "help" financially with the 2019 election campaign, but that it had gone no further.

Borrow-Longain also claimed on his social media channels to have sponsored at least one Conservative drinks reception, although this was not registered at the Electoral Commission under his name or under any of his companies.

Conservative sources highlighted his connection to Ilma Bogdan, whom he employed as chief of staff at his not-for-profit firm Terrestres Servo Coronas. Insider recently reported allegations that Bogdan's father has links to Russia's FSB security agency. Bogdan denied such a link.

The pair were pictured together in Salisbury Cathedral attending a fundraiser, of which Terrestes Servo Coronas is described as a sponsor.

The cathedral was made famous when men accused of being Russian agents in a chemical-weapons attack in the city claimed to have only been there to see the cathedral's spire.

The pair also marked so-called Brexit day – when the UK officially left the EU – in the Carlton Club, along with the minor royal Tessy Antony de Nassau, the ex-wife of Prince Louis of Luxembourg.

Like Bogdan, Borrow-Longain was a council member of the Conservative Foreign and Commonwealth Council, through which he attended several meetings with ministers and senior MPs. A source told Insider he had been "blacklisted" after concerns were raised about some of his activities.

He also describes himself as a senior adviser to Conservative Friends of the Commonwealth and a committee member of the Conservative Friends of East Africa.

Speaking to Insider, Borrow-Longain acknowledged he had changed his name but declined to explain why. He also refused to comment on any of the allegations without being told the identity of the sources.

He told Insider he was in "significant pain and not very well".