By Eric King-
A former aide of Nigel Farage faces up to 20 years in a US jail after admitting to posing as a money launderer in a ‘dark web’ scam.
George Corttrell was arrested as he and Farage got off a flight in Chicago last July. The 22 year old who used to run Mr Farage’s private office, was initially charged with 21 felonies including attempted extortion, money laundering and fraud.
He was stung in an operation by FBI agents pretending to be drug traffickers in which he agreed to safely launder the proceeds of drug money through his offshore accounts. Cottrel was going to do it in complete anonymity
Az central.com reports that federal prosecutors have agreed to drop all but one count of wire fraud in exchange for a guilty plea from Cottrell. Cottrell was accused of offering to launder money for drug traffickers after advertising his services on the ‘dark web’- untraceable websites frequented by hackers, paedophiles, and even terrorists.
Corttrell said in his plea agreement: ‘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,’ Cortrell said.
Cortrell – worth about £250m through a family trust fund, 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. He had no idea he was being set up as part of an investigation. We have no idea either whether Nigel Farage was aware of any of his engagements. Farage himself faces the prospect of legal action over words he is reported to have aid to a peace group ‘Hope Not Hate’, after he described them of being supportive of extremism. The group called it a ”smear”’ and have commenced a crowd funding campaign to start proceedings
Considering the financial comfort Corttrel enjoys, the allegations are strange because Cortrell should not have needed to yield to those sort of temptations. He is of a different stock with a good financial base. Greed was the boundary he chose to exceed and will pay for.
At his young age, everything was going well for Cortrell up until his otherwise comfortable life was interrupted by an investigation into his shady dealings. Shady dealings he should never have got himself involved in,