A political firestorm has erupted in Czechia over a controversial bitcoin donation accepted by the Ministry of Justice from a convicted drug dealer, which led last week to the resignation of Justice Minister Pavel Blažek and raised the prospect of wider government instability.
The scandal centers on a cache of cryptocurrency donated by Tomáš Jiřikovský, who served time for embezzlement, drug trafficking, and arms violations. Jiřikovský, who previously operated an online drug marketplace, transferred around 30 percent of the bitcoins from a police-confiscated wallet to the Ministry of Justice following his release from prison in 2021.
The ministry later auctioned the digital assets for nearly CZK 957 million, around €38.5 million.
Blažek, a senior figure in Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s Civic Democratic Party (ODS), maintained that the courts had not proven the bitcoins were linked to criminal activity, but still offered his resignation on Friday. “I am not aware of any illegal conduct. Of course, I do not want to damage the reputation of the government or the governing coalition,” he said.
The scandal has led to mounting calls for Finance Minister Zbyněk Stanjura, also of the ODS, to step down. Opposition leader Andrej Babiš of ANO, who is widely expected to win the forthcoming Czech elections in October, accused him of complicity and demanded that the entire government resign. “Stanjura admitted that he knew about a billion from a drug dealer. He was silent, he did not act, he covered it all up,” Babiš said on X, claiming the affair shows “this corrupt government must end immediately.”
Stanjura defended himself and insisted that he had no formal authority over the Justice Ministry’s actions and only became aware of the issue after the bitcoin donation had been received and auctioned off.
The ANO movement is calling a vote of no confidence in the government, although Stanjura insisted that “the fall of the government is not on the agenda” and called the controversy “exaggerated.”
“Prime Minister Fiala also admitted in the end that he knew about it,” added Babiš. “Blažek is said to have told him ‘a bit of a story.’ A story worth a BILLION from a drug dealer?! This is not just the inability to manage anything, no one can be this incompetent. Will they really tell us anything about values? Hypocrites.”
The coalition government has become strained following the incident. Interior Minister and STAN leader Vít Rakušan warned that his party would leave the government if Blažek did not resign, and has remained unconvinced even following his departure. “I certainly have questions, and I want to be able to ask those questions,” he told press.
“It is necessary to clarify whether the money could have come from criminal activity, what was the motivation for the donation, who arranged the transaction, and why the rest of the government did not know about it,” added Josef Cogan, head of the STAN parliamentary group in a comment to Echo24.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala has now announced that he will convene the State Security Council to find out “what the secret services know about the case.”
The Czech police and the National Headquarters for Combating Organized Crime are also understood to be investigating the provenance of the donation.
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