Steve Bannon, the former adviser to US president Donald Trump, has been charged with defrauding hundreds of thousands of people who donated to a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for a wall along the US-Mexico border.

Mr Bannon, 66, one of the architects of Mr Trump’s 2016 election victory and a champion of nationalist leaders around the world, was arrested on Thursday morning along with three others involved in the “We Build the Wall” crowdfunding campaign. The justice department said he was arrested on a boat in the Long Island Sound off the coast of eastern Connecticut. 

The campaign to build the wall raised more than $25m, which its leaders told donors would be sent to the federal government to help pay for the construction of a wall along the southern border of the US — a cornerstone pledge from Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign.