Nigel Farage under fresh scrutiny over failure to declare gifts from convicted crypto gambler
The Reform leader appears to have broken MPs’ rules by failing to declare more gifts
Nigel Farage failed to declare gifts from George Cottrell, a crypto gambling entrepreneur convicted of fraud.
According to a Sunday Times investigation, the Reform leader appears to have broken parliamentary rules by failing to declare more benefits that he received before he became an MP.
These include Cottrell having paid for Farage’s private security, staff, transport and accommodation.
The Sunday Times revealed that Cottrell paid for three members of staff to improve his social media presence and allowed Farage to stay in his townhouse near Buckingham Palace.
Cottrell also paid for Farage’s security for several years.
The rules state that new MPs must declare financial interests and “registrable benefits” received in the 12 months before their election.
When he became an MP, Farage registered a £9,253 donation from Cottrell to pay for a trip to Belgium in April 2024, he also added a £15,276 donation for a US domestic flight Cottrell provided in December 2024.
However, he did not declare the other benefits given by the crypto businessman.
Yesterday, Robert Jenrick, Reform’s economic spokesperson, told Laura Kuenssberg that Farage had broken “no rules whatsoever” by accepting the benefits and not declaring them as they were “purely personal”.
He also claimed that this is a “very old story dredged up” by The Sunday Times to “drag Nigel downwards”.
He also said that Cottrell was an “old friend” of Farage’s and that he has no formal role in Reform, yet the Times found that he had handed out Reform UK branded business cards with his name on them.
Farage has called the article an “establishment hit job”.
Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice levelled a personal attack at the Sunday Times journalist, Gabriel Pogrund, saying “everything he has focused on for months […] is to bring Nigel & Reform down”.
In 2016, Cottrell was charged with 21 counts for conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud, blackmail, and extortion.
He was involved in a “dark money” money laundering scheme where he conspired to launder millions of dollars’ worth of drug money using offshore bank accounts.
He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and spent eight months in prison in Arizona, though he is now seeking a pardon from the US president, Donald Trump.
The Lib Dems have written to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner asking him to investigate the donations Farage has received from Cottrell.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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