Krejčíř's Ex-Accomplice Charged in Multibillion-Crown Investment Scam: Investors' Money Spent on Villas and a Ferrari

Prague regional criminal police have officially charged Aleš Koutek, a former associate of Radovan Krejčíř's crime group, along with two of his ex-business partners, in connection with a massive investment fraud. According to investigators, the company Glocin spent years promising clients returns of up to 20% annually from "cryptocurrency mining," while the money collected was actually used to enrich the scheme's organizers. The accused face up to ten years in prison.

When Glocin went bankrupt, the insolvency administrator and the court received a record 7,000 claims totaling roughly 4.5 billion crowns. Among the victims are mothers on parental leave, some of whom took out loans to invest in the project — only to lose everything.

Police initially found no wrongdoing

Suspicions about Glocin first surfaced back in 2019. Acting on a tip from the financial intelligence unit, police investigated Koutek's project but concluded in 2020 that "the fraud allegations have been conclusively disproven." Koutek later used that very police finding to convince new investors to entrust him with their money.

Six years on, the situation has done a complete about-face: this time investigators brought in independent experts, and their conclusions were the opposite. "No economic activity was identified that could generate returns of 10–20% annually," the charging decision states. The touted data center in Bratislava, which was supposedly running hundreds or thousands of graphics cards, produced no verifiable profit whatsoever, according to the investigation.

Koutek himself denies any wrongdoing: "I ran the entire Glocin project believing everything was legal," he told reporters.

A Ferrari, a villa in the Dominican Republic, and property in Croatia

Besides Koutek, charges have also been filed against Slovak national Maroš Mikláš — once Koutek's partner and now his enemy, with the two currently blaming each other for Glocin's collapse. Investigators found that both men used clients' money for personal purposes.

Mikláš, who was permanently barred from securities trading in the US back in 2008 for fraud and who was already facing enforcement proceedings in Slovakia, used investors' money to buy a Ferrari F8 Spider for 8.5 million crowns — the car was registered through Dutch and Slovak companies, but Czech police caught him behind the wheel during a routine road check in 2023. Companies linked to Mikláš spent roughly another 60 million crowns on property in the Croatian village of Privlaka on the Adriatic coast.

Investigators say Koutek funneled at least 88 million crowns into building two houses in the village of Sedliště — spending it on a swimming pool, ponds, a kitchen, landscaping and interior finishing. He managed to sell one of the unfinished houses for 9 million crowns before police seized his assets — the proceeds went toward settling yet another tax-evasion conviction, which is how Koutek escaped with a suspended sentence. Investors' money also went toward building a villa in the Dominican Republic — Koutek transferred a million dollars of client funds to a business partner there through a police officer from Central Bohemia.

The role of a bankrupt bank and middlemen

Suspicious transactions on Glocin's accounts — the kind banks are legally required to report to regulators — were concealed for a long time by the cooperative savings bank Podnikatelská družstevní záložna, the same institution used by influential figures in the ODS party, including former Prime Minister Petr Fiala, before the Czech National Bank revoked its license. Koutek admitted that Glocin's membership in this "closed" credit union gave the project "an incredible opportunity to operate without worry" — with no risk of the bank terminating the relationship over money-laundering suspicions.

A significant portion of the funds was also pocketed by financial advisors who earned enormous commissions for bringing in clients. The third person charged in the case, Lubomír Bezděk, allegedly built and ran Glocin's sales network and personally persuaded people to invest. According to investigators, roughly 38 million crowns ended up in accounts belonging to his partner — Bezděk himself couldn't receive the money directly because of his own debts and enforcement proceedings.

Will victims get their money back?

As the Glocin scheme began to unravel amid the Koutek–Mikláš falling-out, Koutek started pitching clients new "investments" — in gold mining and even in weapons depots in Venezuela, one of the world's most unstable countries. Investigators believe these offers were knowingly bogus from the start.

Police have only managed to seize a small fraction of the defendants' assets — far less than the amount people actually invested in the project (estimated at around two billion crowns). Even the insolvency administrators failed to locate any substantial additional assets. The charges cite damages of roughly 250 million crowns — enough to warrant a harsher sentence — yet Glocin went bankrupt back in 2023, and Mikláš, Bezděk and Koutek all remain free. People connected to both former partners have already launched new investment schemes, luring in — among others — former Glocin investors with promises of helping them recover their lost money.

Read also: 8 Best Swimming Spots Near Prague: Lakes, Quarries and Beaches Within an Hour of the Capital

Source: seznamzpravy.cz