Bitcoin case: Prosecutor seeks 6.5 years for ex-minister Blažek, 20 years for Jiřikovský

The Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office in Olomouc has requested 6.5 years in prison for former Justice Minister Pavel Blažek (formerly of ODS) and his then deputy Radomír Daňhel, 8 years for lawyer Karim Tica, and, for the case's main defendant Tomáš Jiřikovský, a combined sentence of 20 years in prison plus another 9 years for donating bitcoins to the ministry. The indictment was announced by Radim Dragoun, head of the Olomouc prosecutor's office.

The case centres on the transfer to the Ministry of Justice of cryptocurrency of dubious origin worth nearly one billion crowns, donated by Tomáš Jiřikovský, a previously convicted drug dealer. He had already been charged in this case with money laundering and running the darknet marketplace Nucleus Market. In early May, detectives from the National Organised Crime Agency (NCOZ) also brought charges against Blažek — who stepped down as justice minister last year — and his deputy Daňhel, for money laundering and abuse of public office. Tica is charged with organising criminal activity, complicity in abuse of office, and money laundering.

All three are currently free on bail, while Jiřikovský has remained in custody since his arrest. The prosecution was required to file the indictment by 14 August, or he would have had to be released from detention.

Since 2013, Jiřikovský ran the illegal darknet marketplace Sheep Marketplace, which sold drugs, weapons and other prohibited goods. He was later linked to another illegal marketplace, Nucleus Market, though prosecutors were never able to prove he directly ran it. In 2017, he was sentenced to 9 years in prison for embezzlement, drug trafficking and illegal arms dealing. At the time, the state managed to confiscate only 0.5 bitcoin, even though Jiřikovský's earnings were estimated at over 1,500 BTC.

Released on parole in 2020 after serving half his sentence, Jiřikovský sought the return of confiscated electronics — above all, a digital wallet containing bitcoins. His lawyer, Karim Tica, approached Justice Minister Pavel Blažek with a proposal: donate 30% of the bitcoins to the ministry. In the end, the state earned 956.8 million crowns from auctioning off the donated bitcoins. Blažek presented this as the voluntary gesture of a repentant criminal, though critics pointed out that Jiřikovský had effectively bought himself access to the remaining cryptocurrency.

According to available information, additional suspicious circumstances emerged later. The official version states that the wallet was opened in the presence of a notary and Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs Radomír Daňhel. However, according to blockchain analytics platforms, a further pair of transactions had already been carried out from the wallet before that point. Transaction analysis also showed that the wallet held a considerably larger sum than Blažek had claimed — 12.5 billion crowns, or 5,366 bitcoins.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz