(Czech) Police are investigating the ‘pirates of the Caribbean’
Turks & Caicos Informers
Police are investigating the ‘pirates of the Caribbean’
Category: World News
Published: 18 June 2014
Written by Czech News Agency
+/- FONT:
J&T founders implicated in criminal proceedings supervised by the Prague district attorney’s office
Prague, June 18 (ČTK) — The Czech anti-corruption police have started investigating the case of bribery connected with plots on the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, in which representatives of the Czech-Slovak financial group J&T and local politicians are suspected, Lidové noviny (LN) reports today.
Police suspect the Slovak financier Mario Hoffmann, J&T co-founders Ivan Jakabovič and Patrik Tkáč, partner Peter Korbačka and former Turks and Caicos Premier Michael Misick of bribery and money laundering, LN writes.
The case is supervised by a Prague district state attorney's office, and the criminal proceedings are being prepared, its spokesman Šárka Pokorná said. Investigators will decide whether the suspects will be accused.
LN writes, referring to police, that Hoffmann allegedly gave a bribe to the Turks and Caicos government officials, which the J&T Bank arranged. The businessmen deny any wrongdoing.
LN writes that Hoffmann allegedly planned an investment in a luxurious residential complex, including a golf resort on Salt Cay Island for some 600 million dollars.
The businessman bought or long-term leased about 600 hectares of land on the island for the Devco firm. He managed to do so thanks to the deals with then-Premier Misick and other government members.
The transaction was allegedly concluded at a meeting between Misick and J&T Bank managers in Prague in 2005, which Hoffmann organized.
Police say the advantageous purchase and lease of the government plots to the companies that Hoffmann controlled was agreed on. Local officials were to secure the necessary project and building permits.
According to detectives, Hoffmann and J&T Bank representatives tried to cover up the fraud, LN adds.
http://www.praguepost.com/world-news/39661-police-are-investigating-the-pirates-of-the-caribbean