Czech police arrested the drug dealer sentenced Tomáš Jiřikovský, the man behind a drinking of bitcoin of several billion dollars to the country’s Ministry of Justice, being the subject of a scandal which has already claimed a minister of the cabinet.
The Office of the Supreme Prosecutor said Thursday that the National Center for the Fighting Organized Crime (Ncoz) Intervening in the case, securing individuals and evidence, according to a report from the website of the Czech site Echo24. The investigation now targets suspected money laundering and illegal drug manipulation, separated from a wider investigation which also examined the abuse of power.
Jiřikovský was sentenced and served a prison sentence for managing a Darknet drug market called Sheep Marketplace. He was arrested in 2016 and then found guilty of embezzlement of funds and drug trafficking, serving four years with a sentence of nine years in prison.
Arrest is the result of a raid by the police in a house in Břenclav where Jiřikovský stayed.
The Bitcoin donation affair rocked the administration of Prime Minister Petr Fiala just a few months before the Laster country elections this year.
The government has survived a vote of non-confidence filed by the opposition party Ano, which leads the polls at present before the October vote.
Former Justice Minister Pavel Blažek resigned in June for the case, after accepting the donation of 468 BTC, which was sold for around 1 billion Czech Koruna, worth around $ 45 million.
His successor, Eva Decroix, commissioning an independent audit of Grant Thornton. Released at the end of July, the audit concluded that the ministry should not have accepted Bitcoin, warning that it probably comes from the criminal product and could constitute a criminal offense.
