The investigation was conducted in a bad way, some “impotence” was visible, said the head of the Ministry of Justice, Attorney General Waldemar Żurek, referring to the Zondacrypto case. – If I find out that the person who could have had the most knowledge has not been questioned after so many years, it means things were going wrong, he added.
On Tuesday evening on TVP Info, Żurek was asked, among others: about the words of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who a few days ago said that Zondacrypto's “great career” began in 2022 with money – as the head of government stated, citing information from the Polish services – from the Russian mafia. Tusk also said that Zondacrypto has become a company that “sponsors political and social events in Poland and promotes very specific political forces” – it was “a strategic sponsor of the famous event, the so-called CPAC in Rzeszów, which promoted President Karol Nawrocki, who participated in this meeting, and the previous president (Andrzej Duda) was also heavily involved in this meeting.”
The head of the Ministry of Justice, the prosecutor general, when asked whether Zondacrypto was created with money from the Russian mafia, replied: – I can't answer that. I have knowledge, but I cannot say. – I am the prosecutor general, please understand me – he added.
When asked whether the company's financing of the CPAC event – which the Prime Minister was talking about – was legal or not, the minister replied that “of course, it is the case that private companies sponsor various types of political and social ventures, but it should all be done with an open curtain.”
He noted that this company has been under investigation for several years and that its owner disappeared in mysterious circumstances. – I intensified this investigation because I believe that it was not conducted in the way it should have been – he noted. – If I find out after a few years that the person who may have the most knowledge about this has not yet been questioned after so many years, it means that the investigation was going wrong, he added. In his opinion, “there was some impotence of those conducting these proceedings.” – This is incomprehensible to me – he added.
Żurek repeated that private companies have the right to sponsorship. – However, if we see this connection – that is, a company that has unclear methods of financing, which the services point to, the threads that the Prime Minister talked about. (…) Later, at a very crucial moment, this company sponsors an election campaign, an important political meeting that can be a springboard for one of the candidates, and then this candidate (for president-PAP) stubbornly vetoes a project that is supposed to protect many of our citizens from such criminal activities of this type of companies, vetoes it and vetoes it, acting to the benefit of this type of entities – he added. When asked by the journalist whether he was “paying off his political debt”, Żurek replied: – Unfortunately, that's how it looks.
Political tussle over cryptocurrencies
Last Friday, the Sejm again did not reject President Karol Nawrocki's veto to the act on cryptoassets. This was the second attempt of the Sejm to reject the president's veto to the bill on the crypto-assets market.
The president vetoed the bill for the first time at the beginning of December last year. and during the vote in the same month, the Sejm did not reject the veto. The government then decided to re-submit the same bill to the Sejm, it was passed and then vetoed again by the president in February this year. This Act differed from the previous one only in the maximum fee for the Polish Financial Supervision Authority's supervision over this market.
– I don't regret it for a second and I didn't regret that veto. Responsible for these 30 thousand people who today are in a certain crisis or have a certain problem are the responsibility of Donald Tusk's government and the Prime Minister knows it perfectly well – said President Nawrocki a few days ago on Channel Zero. When asked how Prime Minister Tusk could have handled this matter, Nawrocki replied that first of all – by warning those who invest if the government had “information from the Polish services.” – I want to say this publicly: I received information from the Polish services about what was happening around Zondacrypto after the first veto, so I was cut off from information about what was happening – said the president.
– These are documents that come from the services, so I cannot talk about them publicly, but I received them when I made my first decision. This also shows a certain systematic approach of the Polish government. But what is most important – this law (the vetoed act) would not solve the problem we are talking about today and the Prime Minister and the entire government are aware of this, i.e. it would not counteract this problem – he said. He added that “the government has been responsible for 11 months to take care of those people who have a problem today and the Polish government and Prime Minister Tusk did not do it.”
When asked if he had ever met the president of Zondacrypto, Przemysław Kral, Nawrocki replied that he did not know “this man”. – I have not met, nor have I ever met, any of Mr. Kral's envoys, this matter does not concern me at all (…) – said the president. – I don't think they supported my campaign, I don't have such information, I don't think they supported my campaign – added Nawrocki. The president also assured that he has never invested in cryptocurrencies.
Revealed decrease in bitcoin reserves of the Zondacrypto exchange by 99%.
The media wrote at the beginning of April that the largest Polish cryptocurrency exchange may have serious liquidity problems. The analysis, obtained by money.pl and Wirtualna Polska, revealed a decline in bitcoin reserves of the Zondacrypto exchange by 99%. Users report problems with withdrawing funds, journalists reported. Zondacrypto is a stable, solvent and safe entity, and money.pl's analysis is “erroneous, untrue and unfair,” said Przemysław Kral, president of Zondacrypto, in a statement sent at that time.
The Zondacrypto exchange has a portfolio of 4.5 thousand. bitcoins worth over USD 300 million, but – as Kral reported on Thursday – the keys to them are held by the missing Sylwester Suszek, founder of the BitBay exchange, the predecessor of Zondacrypto. Suszek, referred to as the “king of cryptocurrencies”, disappeared in March 2022. He was 33 years old then. He was last seen at a fuel company in Czeladź, owned by Marian W. It was there that his mobile phone was last logged in. As the media described, on the day of his disappearance, the surveillance cameras at the fuel base stopped working for some time. In the investigation into Suszek's disappearance, conducted by the Silesian department of the National Prosecutor's Office, Marian W. was charged with the deprivation of liberty of Sylwester Suszek.
In other proceedings, Marian W. was charged with documenting fictitious transactions with VAT invoices for a total amount of nearly PLN 1.3 billion. According to the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Katowice, he headed an international criminal group dealing in illegal fuel trade and VAT fraud. A total of PLN 1.5 billion of crime proceeds was transferred to the bank accounts of companies involved in illegal activities, said the prosecutor's office, which a few months ago announced an indictment against Marian W. and five other people.
On Friday, the Silesian prosecutor's office initiated an investigation into the Zondacrypto cryptocurrency exchange. The investigation was entrusted to officers of the Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime from Wrocław.
It is being conducted with the aim of “misleading many people as to the possibility of purchasing and storing fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies on the Zondacrypto exchange and thus leading to unfavorable disposal of property.” The scope of the investigation covered behavior undertaken throughout the country from 2022.
The basis for initiating the investigation were the victims' notifications, as well as media reports on problems related to the payment of funds collected under Zondacrypto. “The owner of the exchange indicated that since 2022 it has not had access to the so-called cold wallet where funds in the amount of approximately 4,500 BTC (Bitcoins-PAP) are to be stored, which information was concealed from customers,” the prosecutor's office said in a statement. (PAP)
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