Bitcoin Case: Prosecutor Seeks 20 Years for Jiříkovský, 6.5 Years for Former Minister Blažek

The prosecutor's office of the High Court in Olomouc has filed charges in the high-profile "bitcoin case" against four defendants: programmer and former drug dealer Tomáš Jiříkovský, former Justice Minister Pavel Blažek, his ex-deputy Radomír Daněk, and lawyer Karim Tica. The announcement was made by Radim Dragoun, the senior state prosecutor in Olomouc.

The case centers on the transfer to the Ministry of Justice of cryptocurrency of dubious origin worth nearly one billion crowns — a "donation" made in March 2025 by Jiříkovský, who had previously served time for drug trafficking.

The indictment has already been submitted to the Regional Court in Brno. For Jiříkovský himself, the prosecutor is seeking a combined sentence of 20 years in prison along with confiscation of assets — for running the darknet marketplace Nucleus Market between 2014 and 2016, which was used for large-scale trafficking of drugs and psychotropic substances, as well as for laundering roughly 12 million crowns in criminal proceeds in 2015. This sentence also folds in his previous conviction, from whose conditional early release he had been walking free.

Separately, for laundering money by donating 960 million crowns' worth of bitcoin to the Ministry of Justice in March 2025, the prosecutor is requesting an additional 9 years in prison.

For former Justice Minister Pavel Blažek (formerly of ODS), who resigned over the scandal last year, and his former deputy Radomír Daněk, prosecutors are seeking 6.5 years in prison each, along with fines of several million crowns apiece. According to the prosecution, both men took part in legalizing criminal proceeds tied to the darknet marketplace and the bitcoin donation to the ministry, knowingly breaching their duties as public officials. They face charges of money laundering and abuse of a public official's authority.

An even harsher punishment has been requested for Jiříkovský's lawyer, Karim Tica, whom investigators consider the mastermind behind the entire scheme to legalize criminal proceeds through public officials. Prosecutors also say that in March and April 2025 he was involved in laundering 40 bitcoins, worth around 74 million crowns. For Tica, the prosecutor is seeking 8 years in prison, a fine running into the tens of millions of crowns, and an eight-year ban on professional activity.

The Olomouc prosecutor's office was required to submit the indictment by August 14 — otherwise Jiříkovský would have had to be released once his pre-trial detention period expired.

Jiří Mazánek, director of the National Organized Crime Agency (NCOZ), previously called the "bitcoin case" the largest money-laundering case in the agency's history. He noted that the case was unusual both in how the crime was carried out and in the sheer scale of cryptocurrency involved, requiring a dedicated team and the use of every available tool for tracing and seizing virtual assets. NCOZ's investigation wrapped up on July 29.

Recap: former Justice Minister Blažek accepted nearly a billion crowns' worth of bitcoin last March as a "gift to the state" from Jiříkovský. The crypto transfer raised questions about the origin of the funds, the transparency of the deal, and the ethics of the state accepting such a gift in the first place. According to investigators, the donation was meant to help legalize other bitcoin holdings belonging to Jiříkovský.

The programmer regained access to the cryptocurrency after being released from prison, where he had served nine years for setting up an online drug marketplace. Most of the electronics seized from him were returned by the Brno Regional Court last January on the Supreme Court's orders — since, due to encryption, experts were never able to determine exactly what was stored on the devices.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz