A FORMER MI6 chief has accused Donald Trump of secretly borrowing from Russia to keep his property empire afloat during the financial crisis.

The bombshell accusation from ex-spymaster Sir Richard Dearlove comes as rumours continue to swirl about the president’s past business dealings with Moscow.

3 Sir Richard Dearlove accused Trump of borrowing from Russia Credit: Getty Images

Well connected Sir Richard also warned any shady deals could still come back to haunt the billionaire in the White House.

The MI6 chief between 1999 and 2004 told Prospect magazine: “What lingers for Trump may be what deals—on what terms—he did after the financial crisis of 2008 to borrow Russian money when others in the west apparently would not lend to him”.

His intervention deepens the already raging feud between Trump and the intelligence community on both sides of the Atlantic.

3 It comes as rumours continue to swirl about the president’s past business dealings with Moscow Credit: AP

The ex-spy boss also branded the new president’s wild allegations last month that Cheltenham-based eavesdroppers GCHQ bugged his offices on predecessor Barack Obama’s orders as “deeply embarrassing”

He added: “For Trump and the administration, that is.

“The only possible explanation is that Trump started tweeting without understanding how the NSA-GCHQ relationship actually works”.

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The president has repeatedly denied having any business dealings with Russia.

Ex-MI6 officer Christopher Steele claimed the Russian government holds compromising material on Trump in a secret dossier drawn up to discredit him.

In the rare interview, Sir Richard also criticised Europe’s leaders for ignoring a CIA warning about an impending migration crisis made as far back as 16 years ago.

He described the effect of uncontrolled migration and free movement across the EU as “catastrophic”.

Sir Richard said: “The CIA published these predictive papers around 2001.

“At that point they were indicating that mass migration, particularly from the south to the north - particularly out of Africa - was going to be a huge problem for the European continent.

3 Former Mi6 chief made the bombshell accusation in a rare interview Credit: Reuters

“If you look at the figures for population growth and unemployed youth and that sort of phenomenon, leaving aside the instability in the Middle East, we shouldn’t really be particularly surprised by what’s happened.

“We just didn’t prepare for it.”

The rise of the far right across Europe also poses more of a threat to the UK than Islamic terrorism, the spymaster claimed.

He added: “It is not in the UK’s national interest to see continental Europe being split apart by the revival of nationalist movements”.