The High Prosecutor’s Office in Olomouc, which supervises the investigation of the National Center against Organized Crime (NCOZ), stated on its website that the criminal prosecution of three persons relates to abuse of the authority of an official and the so-called money laundering – legalization of proceeds from criminal activity.
Source Novinkám confirmed information from the Seznam Zprávy website that the detectives accused ex-Minister of Justice Blažek, his then first deputy Radomír Daňhel, who negotiated the bitcoin donation, and Brno lawyer Kárim Titze, representing programmer Tomáš Jiřikovský, who donated bitcoins to the state.
“The prosecuted act is directly related to the donation of bitcoins to the Ministry of Justice. The criminal offense of abuse of authority of an official consists in the exercise of the authority of an official in a manner that contradicts another legal regulation with the intention of obtaining an unauthorized benefit for another,” stated the head of VSZ Radim Dragoun on the website.
“One criminal offense of legalizing the proceeds of crime consists in transferring a thing that is the proceeds of criminal activity to another person. The second criminal offense of legalizing the proceeds of crime consists in trying to make it substantially more difficult to establish the origin of the thing that is the proceeds of criminal activity,” added Dragoun.
Minister of Justice Jeroným Tejc (for ANO) was not surprised by the prosecution of other people. Although no specific names have been confirmed, according to him, it is “a consequence of their actions”. His effort is to wash away the bad reputation of the ministry.
“The independent investigation continues, if the investigators have a sufficient amount of evidence and have assessed that it is possible to start a criminal prosecution against someone, then justice must prevail in this state,” said former Minister of Justice Eva Decroix (ODS), who stands by her actions in the case and refuses to politicize the case.
What the case is about
According to earlier information, lawyer Titz approached his acquaintance from Brno and also former lawyer Blažek, i.e. the Ministry of Justice, with the offer that if he allows the official opening of the bitcoin wallet belonging to his client Jiřikovský, the justice department will get 30 percent of the bitcoins stored there.
After Blažek’s consent, the ministry actually received approximately 468.5 bitcoins from the wallet, which it sold in the next two months at Internet auctions for 956.8 million crowns. However, the police subsequently seized the donated bitcoins, the Ministry of Justice then had to deal with their buyers and pay them the difference in price in the amount of approximately 44 million crowns.
The actual opening of the crypto-wallet took place last year on March 7 with the participation of the economic deputy of the ministry, Daňhel, and a notary public. The present forensic expert Jiří Berger, hired by defense attorney Titz, informed Daňhel and the notary that he had opened the wallet earlier only in the presence of Jiříkovský and his lawyer.
After last May’s publication of information about the receipt of a billion-dollar donation from Jiřikovský, who was previously convicted of illegal arms and drug trafficking, Blažek had to resign as a minister and Daňhel also left the post of deputy.
Among other things, businessman Jiřikovský, who is still in custody, was the first to be charged last August because of a bitcoin donation. In this connection, the detectives suspect him of the aforementioned money laundering.
