On 1 March 2017, a 23-year-old Englishman in an orange jumpsuit stood before a judge in Phoenix, Arizona, flanked by armed guards. George Cottrell, then just 20, had offered to launder millions of dollars from drug trafficking – but the traffickers were undercover law-enforcement agents. He was indicted on 21 counts, including conspiracy to commit money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, blackmail and interstate communication with intent to extort. In a plea agreement, Cottrell admitted: “I falsely claimed that I would launder the criminal proceeds… I intended to retain the money.” He escaped all but one charge – wire fraud.
The judge described his plan as sophisticated and “very dangerous”, but acknowledged his youth. “This does not need to define you,” she told him. “And so it’s up to you to go forward from here.” By the summer of 2017, Cottrell was back in London, where he was photographed outside a pub with his very close friend, Nigel Farage. The image, which has now resurfaced, raises uncomfortable questions for the Reform UK leader – a man who has built his political brand on law and order.
“Nigel Farage's close friend George Cottrell was convicted of wire fraud over a money laundering plot.”