The Czech Ministry of Justice has been closely criticized after an unbiased audit revealed it accepted a Bitcoin donation from a convicted felony with out correct due diligence.
Based on a July 31 report launched by Grant Thornton and shared by the ministry on X, officers did not assess the authorized and reputational dangers tied to the donation. The auditors mentioned the ministry ignored pink flags and couldn’t apply commonplace governance protocols earlier than approving the transaction.
The Bitcoin donation was made by Tomáš Jirčikovaky, who was beforehand convicted for working Sheep Market, a darkish internet platform used for unlawful drug gross sales. The ministry later bought the donated Bitcoin for 956.8 million CZK, roughly $45 million, with out addressing the questionable origin of the funds.
The audit famous that there was no proof that the Ministry of Justice correctly evaluated the transaction earlier than accepting it. It added that regardless of clear warning indicators, the ministry did not deal with the donation as high-risk.
In the meantime, the report additionally criticized the Ministry of Finance for accepting the proceeds from the Bitcoin sale with out conducting any formal assessment.
Grant Thornton additionally described dealing with your entire course of as a critical governance lapse, warning that it uncovered each ministries to authorized and moral scrutiny.
Czech MP Ivan Madlova reacted to the findings by stating that the audit confirms long-standing public considerations. She mentioned:
“The ministry shouldn’t have accepted any present. There are nonetheless vital query marks. And solutions are lacking. I’d slightly not even understand how a lot that audit price us.”
The scandal sparked widespread backlash in June, culminating in a failed no-confidence vote in opposition to the federal government and the resignation of then-Justice Minister Pavel Blažek.
In his response, Blažek downplayed the audit’s findings. He claimed the report recognized no authorized violations and merely repeated “publicly identified dangers and assumptions.”
He added:
“The so-called abstract of the primary a part of the audit doesn’t point out a violation of any particular authorized obligation or regulation, which I’ve been asserting from the start of the ‘affair’…No new findings, only a handy textual content for article headlines, however with stale content material.”