THE man who ran Nigel Farage’s private office in the run-up to the Brexit vote is facing up to 20 years in jail.
George Cottrell was arrested as he travelled in the US with Farage in July and yesterday pleaded guilty to operating a scam on the so-called "dark web" in which he tried to extort money from drug traffickers.
Unfortunately for 22-year-old Cottrell, the "traffickers" were undercover agents. The maximum sentence for his crime is a $250,000 fine and 20 years in prison but he is likely to receive a lesser sentence due to a plea agreement with the US justice authorities.
Cottrell, whose personal wealth is said to be in the millions, managed the former Ukip leader’s private office and was part of the Ukip media team.
Millionaire Ukip funder Arron Banks’ memoirs of the referendum, The Bad Boys of Brexit: Tales of Mischief, Mayhem & Guerrilla Warfare in the EU Referendum Campaign, describe Cottrell as "Posh George": “Nigel’s office fixer, posh to the point of caricature and wilfully abrasive, but extremely generous when it comes to picking up the bar tab.”
Cottrell is the nephew of Lord Hesketh, a government minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major and former owner of the Hesketh Racing Formula One team, who defected to Ukip in 2011, ironically over the then Prime Minister David Cameron’s refusal to hold a EU referendum.
Cottrell’s crime came to light when US tax officials probed the activities of someone calling himself the Banker who claimed he could launder money for a fee. Working on a black market website using an encrypted network, Cottrell demanded $20,000 to launder money. His original 21 felony charges were reduced to one after he agreed to plead guilty. He was arrested when he and Farage landed at Chicago’s O’Hare airport in July after attending the Republican convention.
Cottrell was denied bail over fears he would flee justice and is being held in Arizona.
In his plea agreement published yesterday he said: “I falsely claimed that I would launder the criminal proceeds through my bank accounts for a fee. I intended to retain the money.”
Nigel Farage was making no comment on the scandal last night.
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