Czech police have arrested the convicted drug trafficking Tomáš Jiřikovský, the man behind a donation of multimillionaire Bitcoin to the country’s ministry of justice, climbing a scandal that a cabinet minister has already claimed.
The Supreme Prosecutor’s Office said Thursday that the National Center for the Fight against Organized Crime (NCOZ) I intervened in the case, assuring people and evidence, according to a report on the Chech Echo24 news website. The investigation is now aimed at suspected money laundering and illegal management, separated from a broader investigation that also examined the abuse of power.
Jiřikovský was convicted and served a prison sentence to execute a Darknet drug market called Sheep Marketplace. He was arrested in 2016 and subsequently convicted of embezzlement and drug trafficking, serving four years of a nine -year prison sentence.
The arrest was the result of a police raid in a house in Břeclav where Jiřikovský stayed.
Bitcoin’s donation case shook the administration of Prime Minister Petr Fiala only months before the country’s elections this year.
The Government survived a vote of non -confidence presented by the anc opposition party, which leads the surveys currently before the October vote.
Former Justice Minister Pavel Blažek resigned in June for the matter, after having accepted the donation of 468 BTC, which was sold for approximately 1 billion Czechs Koruna, for a value of around $ 45 million.
His successor, Eva Decroix, commissioned an independent audit of Grant Thornton. Run at the end of July, the audit concluded that the Ministry should not have accepted Bitcoin, warning that it probably originated in criminal income and could constitute a criminal offense.
