Born in Gloucester in October 1993, Cottrell’s mother, the Honourable Fiona Cottrell, is an aristocrat whose father, the third Baron Manton, inherited a family soap empire, the Sunday Times reports.
Cottrell reportedly left education without A-levels after being expelled from Malvern College in Worcestershire due to a “gambling addiction”.
It is not clear when he became close with Farage, but Cottrell volunteered for him in an Essex by-election in 2015 and was rewarded with a role as Ukip’s head of fundraising, aged 22.
In 2016, they were together on the day of the Brexit referendum.
A month later, Cottrell was arrested in the US as he and Farage were preparing to return to the UK after the Republican convention, where Farage had spoken at a rally in support of Donald Trump.
Cottrell had been caught agreeing to launder money for undercover agents posing as drug traffickers in an FBI sting operation.
Farage said at the time that he was surprised by what had happened and had “never had any suspicions” about Cottrell. He said he could not be held responsible for “what everyone around me does”.
Cottrell faced 20 years in jail for 21 counts related to money laundering, fraud, blackmail and extortion.
But he eventually brokered a plea deal, admitted guilt to a charge of wire fraud and ended up serving just eight months in prison.
In the plea bargain, Cottrell said: “I falsely claimed that I would launder the criminal proceeds through my bank accounts for a fee.”
He claimed that rather than launder the money, he and an associate planned on keeping it themselves.
