The intelligence experts who doubled profits under Dr Fox since he became minister

One of Adam Werritty’s billionaire backers claimed yesterday that he was tricked into funding his globetrotting with Liam Fox.

London-based Poju Zabludowicz – a former arms dealer who owns much of Las Vegas and helped bankroll David Cameron’s campaign to become Tory leader – was said to be ‘extremely disappointed’ to discover the truth about Mr Werritty.

Mr Zabludowicz, 58, heads the Tamares Group of investment companies, based in Liechtenstein. The firm paid £3,000 to Mr Werritty’s company Pargav Ltd, which funded his first-class travel to meet Dr Fox on lavish foreign trips.

Jonathan Hawker, a spokesman for Mr Zabludowicz, said: ‘He is just extremely disappointed. He is now learning that his money was not all used in the way he thought it was.

‘He is passionate about promoting dialogue to promote the Middle East peace process, and he donated £3,000 a year to Security Futures  for that purpose.

‘Then his office had a call from Werritty saying his annual contribution was due, and that the invoice would be from Pargav Ltd but that it was effectively the same thing. He took it at face value.’

In 2005, Mr Zabludowicz’s firm paid £15,000 to Mr Cameron’s campaign to lead the Conservative Party, and last year donated £131,805 to the party itself. Tamares is said to own approximately 40 per cent of the property in downtown Las Vegas, including numerous casinos, plus property in Washington DC and New York’s Times Square.

Mr Zabludowicz fiercely guards his privacy and does so with much success despite counting Madonna and other A-list celebrities among his close friends. His wife Anita, 50, is a  renowned art collector,

The billionaire’s father Shlomo was an Auschwitz survivor who moved to Finland and built up the Israeli arms company Soltam. After Shlomo’s death in 1994, his son took over the business and sold most of the defence interests in favour of property. However, he is still chairman of a U.S. firm which manufactures ammunition for the military.

Mr Zabludowicz, worth an estimated £2billion, is also a key  figure in Bicom, the British Israel Communications and Research  Centre, which is the UK’s major pro-Israel lobby and one of the common threads running through Mr Werritty’s network of political friendships.

Mr Hawker added: ‘For many  years, Poju Zabludowicz has helped fund not-for-profit organisations, not individuals... promote  peace and understanding  between the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.’