George Cottrell, a British financier and convicted criminal, according to claims from the gambling world, lost £16 million (€18,7 million) in one night of poker in Montenegro earlier this month, writes the Daily Mail.
Cottrell, 30, is believed to have been playing against Chinese billionaires, Hollywood celebrities and poker stars when he gambled away the huge sum in one night.
Ahead of the said game, the newspaper reports, a British poker player posted on social media that it was "too big" for him, explaining that it would cost almost £160.000 just to see three community cards.
Cottrell, 30, who spent eight months in a US prison for fraud after being arrested in 2016, was reportedly still "enjoying" the early hours of last Thursday morning when his luck ran out, the Daily Mail reported on May 18.
They remind that the tournament with high stakes for elite players is held in a casino in Budva, and that everything is watched by thousands of people on the Internet via broadcast. Sources claim that Cottrell's big losses took place in a private VIP room, according to the British media.
"Even though George lost so much money, he seemed to be enjoying himself and didn't leave the table until seven in the morning. By that time he had lost $20 million (€18,4 million)," said one poker source.
The newspaper said they were unable to get a comment from Kotrel.
Sources say, according to the Daily Mail, that Cottrell's disastrous performance at poker last week is likely to now lead to him being seen by others as an extremely wealthy player who is known for taking significant risks but can be seen as "easy money" for more skilled players.
"Vijesti" wrote last year that Cottrell, whom the leader of the Movement for Change Nebojša Medojević then labeled as one of the financiers of the Europe Now Movement, and the Minister of Finance Aleksandar Damjanović then said that he was connected to an illegal crypto machine in Tivat, was politically active in Britain, especially at the time of Brexit.
Cottrell was one of the advisors of Nigel Farage, a former British and European Member of Parliament and one of the most vocal proponents of Great Britain's exit from the European Union, and was in charge of raising money for UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), until he was arrested in the United States of America States.
He comes from an aristocratic London family and was raised and educated on a private island, and when he went to college, he was kicked out for illegal gambling.
He was a formal director of several businesses at a young age, both in the UK and in other countries, and since 2013 he has worked at banks such as Credit Suisse and JP Morgan.
In July 2016, he was arrested in Chicago and charged with money laundering, fraud, blackmail and extortion.
The indictment alleges that in 2014 he met with undercover federal agents in Las Vegas and arranged to launder millions of dollars in drug money through offshore bank accounts.
In December 2016, he reached a deal with prosecutors and 20 counts were dismissed in exchange for pleading guilty to wire fraud in which he explained various ways money could be laundered.
He spent eight months in prison.
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