Czech police have detained convicted drug trafficker Tomáš Jiřikovský, the person behind a multi-billion-dollar bitcoin donation to the nation’s Ministry of Justice, escalating a scandal that has already claimed a cupboard minister.
The Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Workplace mentioned Thursday that the Nationwide Centre for the Struggle Towards Organised Crime (NCOZ) intervened in the case, securing people and proof, in line with a report by Czech news website Echo24. The probe now targets suspected cash laundering and unlawful drug dealing with, separated from a broader investigation that additionally examined abuse of energy.
Jiřikovský was convicted and served a jail sentence for working a darknet drug market known as Sheep Market. He was arrested in 2016 and subsequently convicted of embezzlement and drug trafficking, serving 4 years of a nine-year jail sentence.
The arrest was the results of a raid by police on a home in Břeclav the place Jiřikovský was staying.
The bitcoin donation case rocked Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s administration solely months earlier than the nation’s election laster this yr.
The federal government survived a vote of no confidence filed by opposition occasion ANO, which leads the polls at current forward of October’s vote.
Former Justice Minister Pavel Blažek resigned in June over the affair, having accepted the donation of 468 BTC, which was bought for roughly 1 billion Czech koruna, value round $45 million.
His successor, Eva Decroix, commissioning an impartial audit from Grant Thornton. Launched in late July, the audit concluded the ministry shouldn’t have accepted the bitcoin, warning it probably originated from legal proceeds and will represent a legal offense.
