Support Our Mission
Read Our Latest Edition
BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen
Artemon, the accountancy firm that administers George Cottrell’s Tivat company, co-invested in a property development with a company owned by an indicted drug-trafficker. The trafficker, Mileta Ojdanić, is a former police officer indicted by state authorities in 2024 for organising an alleged cocaine-trafficking and money-laundering operation called the “police cartel”.
Cottrell is a convicted fraudster, who has personally funded Nigel Farage’s travel, security and staff costs. His mother’s donations to Reform UK are now under criminal investigation. It has also been confirmed that he transferred £2 million to Fiona Cottrell days before her donations to Reform UK.
Artemon is the corporate service provider that administers Cottrell’s Montenegro company, registered as Private Family Office. But it simultaneously administers companies owned by Mileta Ojdanić, who appears to have used bank accounts being scrutined for links to Russian money.
Montenegro’s High Court confirmed an indictment against Ojdanić in 2024: prosecutors accuse him of organising a criminal network that trafficked some 4.3 tonnes of cocaine from South America into Europe and laundered around €7 million. In December 2024, Montenegro’s Special Police Department seized documentation from Adriatic Bank in an investigation into clients’ prior business ties to Russia.
Private Family Office’s own accounts show an accumulated deficit that grew from roughly €79,000 in 2020 to €465,638 in 2025, on near-zero revenue and a single employee, kept afloat by more than €400,000 in loans from unidentifiable sources, first reported by Byline Times. Cottrell’s lawyers have said only that the loans and the company’s lack of revenue are unsurprising, since it was established for “administrative functions.”
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
SUBSCRIBE TODAY
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
Byline Times previously revealed that Cottrell entered the corporate finance world under a false Swiss identity, hired by the same City network that later produced Reform UK’s own treasurer, Mehrtash A’zami. Byline Times has since confirmed that this identity was stolen from a real person – Cottrell’s old school friend – and that the senior accountant who had hired Cottrell years later under that false identity had no way of knowing about the past friend.
The second traced how the accountancy network tied to both Cottrell and former Reform UK treasurer Mehrtash A’zami has a Moscow partner tied to sanctioned Russian oligarchs. It also revealed that Artemon, and a sister Tivat firm, Vegaplus, serve clients that include a Belgrade arms dealer marketing Russian-designed weapons, and individuals linked to Russian state enterprises.
Artemon is the registered corporate contact for two of Ojdanić’s companies, Ruža Co and his gambling firm, Džoker – pointing to the company’s corporate administration of both.
On 22 September 2021, a government filing seen by Byline Times confirms that Artemon became a joint investor in Ruža Co, whose ownership is split 51% to Mileta Ojdanić and 49% to Milica Ojdanić.
The joint-investor role was confirmed again a year later. Artemon is also the corporate service provider for Ojdanic’s gambling company Džoker, a betting venue and lounge in Kotor, Montenegro.

EXCLUSIVE
Why did Reform UK change from being a privately-owned company to a non-profit company limited by guarantee in 2025? Nafeez Ahmed investigates a fraudulent identity used by George Cottrell – and how his former boss in the City became the party’s treasurer vetting donations
Nafeez Ahmed
Montenegrins call it the “police cartel” because prosecutors allege s…