Buying crypto with a UK bank account while in the US

Background: My wife and I lived and worked in the London for a couple of years and still have some wages left in a bank account.

I want to be able to use some/all of that money to buy ETH/BTC. Does anyone here have any experiences with this sort of transfer?

If so, what platform did you use? (I tried Binance using a VPN but had identity confirmation issues.

Is there any tax issues I would need to be aware of if I were able to pull this off?