George Cottrell, the convicted money launderer whose donations to Reform are now the subject of a police investigation, previously worked for Roman Abramovich, the now-sanctioned Russian oligarch close to Putin, a Nerve investigation can reveal.
Separately, members of Cottrell’s family have claimed that he would frequently appear with “suitcases of cash”. The purpose of the cash was unclear, they said. Cottrell, a close friend and ally of Nigel Farage for more than a decade, was at the time Ukip’s main fundraiser and worked with Farage on the Brexit campaign.
The allegations – denied by Cottrell’s lawyers, Carter-Ruck – add another layer of intrigue to the story of the Reform funder, who began working with Farage when still in his early 20s. Earlier this month, it was revealed that the National Crime Agency has now opened an investigation into donations he and his mother made to Reform and Richard Tice’s Britain Means Business.
George Cottrell, the convicted money launderer whose donations to Reform are now the subject of a police investigation, previously worked for Roman Abramovich, the now-sanctioned Russian oligarch close to Putin, a Nerve investigation can reveal.
Two weeks ago, the Nerve published an article about how Cottrell has operated in plain sight at the top of UK politics for a decade. That article included a member of Cottrell’s family revealing that Cottrell had been a close friend of Roman Abramovich’s son, Arkadiy Abramovich. A week later, Byline Times published a lengthy article about Cottrell’s business dealings and quoted a different source who made the same claim.
The friendship appears to have involved visits to Abramovich’s home, visits to Kensington casinos and an early entrée to the world of complex offshore financial deals
Cottrell’s lawyers, Carter-Ruck, in correspondence with the outlet, denied the claim.
But now a new source has come forward who knew Cottrell as a teenager – when, he says, there was no secret of Cottrell’s friendship with Abramovich’s son. On the contrary, the source says, it was something he boasted about. He paints a picture of Cottrell as a reckless “risk taker” whose taste for the high life was nurtured, in part, through his friendship with Arkadiy.
That friendship appears to have involved visits to Abramovich’s home, visits to Kensington casinos and an early entrée to the world of complex offshore financial deals. The former friend alleges that Cottrell worked directly for Roman Abramovich, including “signing contracts on his behalf”.
This was before the dramatic events of 2016, when federal agents arrested Cottrell while he was travelling with Nigel Farage in America, on the campaign trail for Donald Trump.
Cottrell subsequently pleaded guilty to one charge – wire fraud – and admitted to advertising crypto money laundering services on the dark web. He was sentenced to eight months in prison. On his release, he told a journalist that he’d learned as a teenager “about the murky and complicated world of ‘shadow banking’, secret offshore accounts and sophisticated financial structures”.
But, even after a series of investigative reports in the Sunday Times and elsewhere, the origins of George Cottrell’s crypto career remain obscure.
Members of Cottrell’s family have told the Nerve that they didn’t know what to make of his activities at the time. He was a gambler, visiting casinos and bookmakers and returning with what they described as “suitcases of cash”.
Cottrell, through Carter-Ruck, dismissed the allegations as “wild exaggeration” and said he denied them “in the strongest possible terms”.
‘I just remember quite distinctly, he explained what he was doing, on behalf of the dad. He showed me how he was signing stuff on his behalf’
During this period, Cottrell was working for Ukip as its main fundraiser, and after his release from prison, he went on to become “acting treasurer” for the Brexit party. In our piece two weeks ago, we published emails from Cottrell to a potential donor in 2019, when he was apparently the main point of contact for the Brexit party’s financial transactions.
But the Nerve has now learned more about Cottrell’s activities as a teenager. His friend describes how he appeared to have been drawn into a world that seemed miles away from the relatively modest home where he lived with his mother in the Worcestershire countryside.
“I knew already that he was friends with Abramovich's son, and he would sort of be talking about this. And I just remember quite distinctly, he explained what he was doing, on behalf of the dad. He showed me how he was signing stuff on his behalf.”
The friend expressed his alarm that Cottrell would become some sort of “fall guy”. Cottrell didn’t seem to care about any potential consequences.
Expelled at 16 from Malvern College for gambling, he nonetheless didn’t seem short of cash. Staying with relatives in South Kensington and hanging out with Arkadiy Abramovich, he boasted about living the London high life with an international elite.
Arkadiy had undertaken an internship at the Russian bank VTB, before opening his own fund, ARA Capital, a private investment vehicle. Back in 2017, the Daily Beast noted that on Cottrell’s LinkedIn page he expressed an interest in VTB Bank as well as Moldindconbank, an obscure Moldovan bank involved in the “Russian laundromat”.
To his friends at the time, it was never clear how much of Cottrell’s claims were “bullshit”. But “at the same time, he’d have casino receipts for £15,000”.
Claire Gill, Cottrell’s lawyer at Carter-Ruck, said the allegations were “rumour” with “no direct evidence”. She categorically denied Cottrell had had any relationship with Arkadiy Abramovich or had conducted financial transactions on his father’s behalf.
Gill declined to answer a question about her legal representation of both Nigel Farage and George Cottrell after being told that the Nerve had seen letters from her and her colleague, Dominic Garner, sent on behalf of both Cottrell and Farage. She didn’t respond to questions about whether Carter-Ruck still represented both men, or what conflict checks had been undertaken before taking them on as clients.