Farage aide facing 20 years over online drug cash scam
ONE of Nigel Farage’s closest aides is facing 20 years in jail after admitting posing as a money launderer to rip off drug dealers.
george Cottrell told a gang of drug traffickers that he could launder up to £122,000 a month for them through the internet with complete anonymity.
The dealers were actually undercover FBI agents and Cottrell was arrested last July in Chicago as he travelled back to London with mr Farage following the republican party’s national convention.
Cottrell, who ran the former Ukip leader’s private office, is now facing a £200,000 fine and deportation back to Britain in addition to the jail term.
The 22-year- old is the son of a former Playboy model and nephew of former Tory treasurer Lord Hesketh who served under margaret Thatcher and defected to Ukip in 2011.
Documents filed in federal court in Arizona say that Cottrell had a ‘serious, years-long gambling problem’ which led to him taking ‘irrational risks’.
Cottrell, who is worth an estimated £250million through a family trust fund, had denied 21 counts including attempted extortion, money laundering and fraud but admitted one count of wire fraud under a plea deal.
It is unclear if he will have to serve his sentence in the Us or Britain.
Cottrell admitted posing as a money launderer called ‘Bill’ on the dark web, an unregulated part of the internet frequently used by drug dealers and arms smugglers.
He told the undercover FBI agents to meet him in Las vegas and told them to send £15,000 to one of his associates who would launder it through Cottrell’s bank accounts.
Cottrell is alleged to have then attempted to blackmail the ‘drug traffickers’ by demanding £62,000 in the form of Bitcoin – a virtual online payment system – saying he would alert the authorities if they refused.
In the plea agreement he wrote: ‘I falsely claimed that I would launder the criminal proceeds through my bank accounts for a fee.
‘rather than launder any of the money, though... I intended to retain the money.’
Cottrell was arrested as he and mr Farage got off a plane at Chicago’s O’Hare airport on July 22 en route to London.
Cottrell’s mother is Fiona Cottrell, a former glamour model who once dated Prince Charles.
she posed naked in Penthouse magazine in 1973 under the pseudonym Frances Cannon.
mr Farage declined to comment. His spokesman has previously said that he knew nothing about Cottrell’s actions.