Senior Reform UK adviser, who was jailed for providing cash laundering recommendation on the darkish net, writes ‘how you can’ guide… on laundering money
A senior adviser to Nigel Farage who was jailed for offering to use the dark web to launder money for drug dealers has written a ‘how to’ book – on money laundering.
George Cottrell, 31, a Reform UK fundraiser who describes Mr Farage as a father figure, says new techniques being deployed include putting fake albums on the Spotify music streaming site or setting up crowdfunding sites to ‘clean’ digital currencies.
‘Posh George’, as he is widely known, was arrested in 2016 after attending the Republican National Convention in Ohio, where Donald Trump won the party’s presidential nomination.
He pleaded guilty to wire fraud after offering advice to undercover federal agents in Las Vegas, posing as drug traffickers, on ‘ways criminal proceeds could be laundered’ on the dark web. He served eight months in prisons in Arizona and Illinois.
His father Mark went to school with Prince Andrew and his mother, Fiona Cottrell, a former glamour model, was romantically linked to Prince Charles in the 1970s. His mother was the biggest donor to Reform last year, contributing £750,000.
He was privately educated on Mustique, the Caribbean island, and divides his time between London and Montenegro, the Balkan state which has been a honeypot for money launderers.
He was also in a relationship with Made In Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo between 2019 and 2023.
According to How To Launder Money, ‘income earned through drug deals, contract killings, fraud and robbery’ can be concealed through fake music streaming contracts, with cryptocurrencies used to pay for streams of strategically placed songs, with ‘clean’ money being paid out as royalties.
George Cottrell, 31 (right) is a Reform UK fundraiser who describes the Party’s leader Nigel Farage (left) as a father figure
A senior adviser to Nigel Farage who was jailed for offering to use the dark web to launder money for drug dealers has written a ‘how to’ book – on money laundering
Cottrell also says crowdfunding ‘giving platforms’ on which money is raised for purposes such as ‘medical expenses, tuition or to remove a tattoo’ are also effective because there is ‘little oversight on the cause’, while obviously inflated values for art and antiquities – often fakes – can also be a ‘red flag’ for laundering.
But Cottrell warns against forging works by living artists, saying: ‘No matter how good you are or how valuable the originals might be, don’t do it.’
He makes clear the launderers are winning the battle with law enforcement. In the book, co-written with L Burke Files, an international financial investigator, he writes: ‘Some 5 per cent of the global economy is illicit.
‘Do you know what percentage is stopped by AML [anti money-laundering] laws? A staggeringly low 0.05 per cent… These laws are not working and have never worked.’
Last month, Tony Bloom, billionaire owner of Brighton & Hove Albion football club, told the High Court his syndicate placed millions of pounds of bets through Cottrell’s gambling accounts.
In 2024, this newspaper reported claims Cottrell had lost £16million in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro playing against Chinese billionaires, Hollywood celebrities and high-roller poker stars.
Cottrell stresses his book is to help those trying to catch the criminals. He said: ‘Unlike most authors, I didn’t just research it – I also did some field work’.
