Mysterious Meeting in Dubai. Przemysław Kral to Become a Crown Witness? Prosecutor's Office Sent Delegation

The Prosecutor's Office wants Przemysław Kral to testify about how Zondacrypto really operated and is considering applying to the court for crown witness status in return. The first discussion on this matter reportedly took place in a hotel in one of the Gulf states. The Polish side was represented by prosecutor Marek Wełna from the National Prosecutor's Office and the head of one of the branches of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau. The findings were published on Monday by "Rzeczpospolita." The National Prosecutor's Office neither confirmed nor denied the trip or the meeting itself.

A Trip Known to Only a Few

Marek Wełna has been heading the Silesian branch of the Department for Organized Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor's Office since February. This department is conducting an investigation into the disappearance of Sylwester Suszek, the creator of BitBay, from which Zondacrypto emerged. Kral, who was Suszek's closest collaborator for years, has never been questioned in this matter.

The delegation was unusual by the standards of the prosecutor's office and was classified. When asked about the purpose of the trip, spokesperson for the National Prosecutor's Office Przemysław Nowak replied that prosecutor Wełna does not provide information in this regard. He repeated the same when journalists asked again.

Formally, Kral remains a third party. He has no charges against him, is not a suspect, and does not appear on any wanted list. He methodically withdrew from Poland: six months before his disappearance, he deregistered his law practice in Katowice, and shortly thereafter his business activity. He had been living in Monaco for several years. His last post on X was published on April 16, where he admitted that the exchange did not have access to a wallet containing 4,500 Bitcoins, worth over 300 million dollars at that time, and that only the missing Suszek had the keys.

What Crown Witness Status Provides

A crown witness can be a suspect who acted in an organized criminal group and reveals everything he knows about the crimes and their perpetrators to investigators. It cannot be someone who led such a group. The witness loses assets derived from crimes but gains immunity and enters a protection program, which may include changing identity and appearance. The decision to grant this status is made by the court at the request of the prosecutor.

The calculation is simple but risky. The Prosecutor's Office must assess in advance whether what it hears will be worth refraining from punishment. General Adam Rapacki, co-founder of the CBŚ and the institution of the crown witness itself, points out in an interview with "Rzeczpospolita" that everything depends on the role Kral played in the entire mechanism. He formally managed the exchange but was not its owner. His knowledge of money flows and who actually made the decisions is irreplaceable by evidence gathered in other ways.

Another argument comes into play. Kral has long sought Israeli citizenship, and Israel does not extradite its citizens. If he were indeed there, extradition would be out of the question. The procedural agreement then becomes the only real option.

Investigation Continues Without Kral

On the same day that the secret mission was described, the Katowice prosecutor's office announced new findings. The proceedings were extended by six months, until January 17, 2027. Investigators reviewed the correspondence of exchange employees on Telegram and Slack, appointed experts to assess its financial condition, and most importantly, blocked 4 million euros, which is over 17.3 million PLN, in an account at the French branch of the bank.

The money came from the transfer of ownership of a company registered in Monaco, whose shareholders are individuals suspected in the investigation. A judge of the Court of Appeal in Paris, citing EU regulations on mutual recognition of protective and confiscation orders, ordered the seizure of the funds and their transfer to the deposit account of the French judiciary. This is the first tangible result of cooperation between Polish investigators and Monaco and France.

The scale of the case is growing week by week. According to statements from the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Katowice, several thousand notifications have already been received, and client losses are estimated at at least 350 million PLN. Over 250 terabytes of data have been secured from the exchange's production servers, and since the end of May, a joint Polish-Estonian investigative team has been operating.

Estonia closed its part on June 29. Its financial intelligence revoked the license of BB Trade Estonia OÜ, the operator of zondacrypto.com. Six weeks earlier, it had partially suspended it and given the company 30 days to organize its activities, prohibiting the acceptance of new funds. The company did not respond to the summons.

Whose Names Might Come Up

In the background of the entire case stands Marian W., known in the underworld as "Maniek." The prosecutor's office has charged him with the deprivation of liberty of Sylwester Suszek, who was last seen on March 10, 2022, at his fuel base in Czeladź. On that day, monitoring at the facility was not operational for some time. In a separate proceeding, Marian W. has been charged with documenting fictitious transactions with invoices totaling nearly 1.3 billion PLN. According to Katowice investigators, he led an international group defrauding VAT.

The prosecutor's office accepts as the strongest hypothesis that Suszek is dead. Kral publicly claimed otherwise. If he sits down to testify, he will have to say not only who laundered money through the exchange and who was its actual investor, but also how the company's relations with the political world looked. So far, none of these answers have been provided, and over three thousand registered victims are still waiting for their funds.

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