I exposed Nigel Farage's criminal benefactor | Sunday Times Investigation

**Venetia Menzies** (0:00)
Am I tough enough?

**SPEAKER_2** (0:01)
Strong and stable leadership. Total ruba.

**Venetia Menzies** (0:03)
Hell yes, I'm tough enough. Shut the fridge.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:05)
Not another once. It's the PoliticsJOE podcast.
Venetia, I'm actually going to get you to do your own introduction, because you are within the Insight team, which is at The Sunday Times, and you've done this blockbuster exclusive that came out in the Sunday papers yesterday. Do you want to introduce yourself to the audience?

**Venetia Menzies** (0:24)
Yes, I'm Venetia Menzies, and I'm an investigations correspondent on the Insight team. And the Insight team was actually set up in the 60s and is responsible for some of the best investigative work in the country. So it's a real honor to be in the newest iteration, led by our editor Gabriel Pogrand and working alongside Emmanuel Modolo.
We actually teamed up with a colleague from The Times investigation team, George Greenwood, for this investigation as well. So shout out to him.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:54)
And it's a massive investigation. I mean, you're kind of almost in the middle of it, because there's probably a lot more that's going to come out from this story. And let's start from the beginning. So this all centers around Nigel Farage and his relationship with George Cottrell.
Do you want to tell me a little bit about who George is? Sure.

**Venetia Menzies** (1:12)
So George Cottrell, in a sentence, is a 32 year old who has no official role in reform yet is Farage's right hand man. He is an aristocrat and a convicted criminal.
And it's really just been priced in by the Westminster bubble that he's been around Farage for the past 10 years. But our investigation essentially reveals that he has done a lot for Farage's political career. He has been supporting him financially and most importantly, for the year running up to his election in 2024 But George himself is a very interesting character.
He is referred to those who know him as Post George. He was raised in the island of Mystique, loved by billionaires and royalty. He went to boarding school at very young age and he struggled with a gambling habit that has actually led to his expulsion in 2010 when he was just a teenager. And from there, he went straight into the world of finance and politics.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:17)
That's why he was expelled from school because of gambling.

**Venetia Menzies** (2:20)
Yeah, there is an anecdote about him walking out of a bookies with 50,000 pounds in cash as a young teenager.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:27)
Wow.
It's interesting as well because there's no end to the number of photographs that you can find him in. When you say that he was around Nigel Farage, this is publicly documented. Many journalist photographers have pictured him. When we were looking for pictures this morning to publish this story, he's everywhere. He really is around him.

**Venetia Menzies** (2:50)
He really had a seat in history in so many moments. He was at Farage's side on the night of the referendum result and was there in a lot of the most important moments of Farage's life. In turn, Farage was there for a lot of his most pivotal moments, including when he was arrested in America and indicted on 21 charges, including money laundering, blackmail and extortion.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:13)
So this is when have they gone out to see if Trump is going to be elected? Is that what's happened?

**Venetia Menzies** (3:17)
So yes, it's in 2016 It's a month after Brexit. So, you know, Farage is riding high. He's just pulled off one of the biggest coups of his career, playing really the pivotal role in us leaving the European Union. And they are invited to America. Everybody in America wants a piece of Farage. They're there in Cleveland, Ohio to go to the Republican Convention, where Trump is announced as a presidential nominee. So, they're rubbing shoulders with Trumps in a circle. And on their way back, they transit through Chicago.
And when they get off the plane, there are a group of federal agents waiting right at the end of those stairs. You come down on the plane, and it looks for a moment like they're actually there for Farage. But they step forward and they arrest the man next to him, George Cottrell.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:09)
Wow. Wow. I bet Nigel was relieved at that moment.

**Venetia Menzies** (4:14)
Absolutely.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:14)
So he's arrested at this point as well because he has been communicating with what he thinks are drug traffickers, and he's offering his services of money laundering. And they're not drug traffickers.

**Venetia Menzies** (4:27)
No. So it was two years prior to his arrest that this communication happened. So we managed to get the American court documents and even actually a transcript and recording of his cases. And they reveal a lot of details. So essentially, in 2014, he was part of this kind of money laundering scandal in which he was offering on an anonymous advert on the dark web services to launder money.