On Sunday, the Municipal Court in Brno upheld a request from the High State Prosecutor’s Office in Olomouc for Tomas Jirikovsky, the convicted criminal at the heart of the recent Bitcoin scandal, to be remanded in custody, state prosecutor Lucie Slamova told reporters after the hearing.
The High State Prosecutor’s Office proposed custody for Jirikovsky on Saturday evening. The judge had 24 hours to decide on the motion, and the hearing was held on Sunday behind closed doors.
Jirikovsky’s defence attorney Karim Titz declined to comment on the court decision following the hearing. Slamova waived the right to challenge the court’s decision, while Jirikovsky lodged an appeal, which has no suspensive effect.
The prosecutors justified the motion for remand in custody on the grounds of fear of flight, obstruction of fact-finding and likelihood to repeat the crime. “The judge granted my motion and took the defendant into custody on all three grounds,” Slamova said.
Police arrested Jirikovsky in a raid last Thursday on his home in Breclav, South Moravia, and charged him on Saturday with two counts of legalising the proceeds of crime, alleged to have taken place in 2015 and 2025. According to police, Jirikovsky concealed the origin of the bitcoins derived from criminal activity.
On Friday afternoon, police brought Jirikovsky to the regional branch of the National Central Office Against Organised Crime (NCOZ) in Brno. He stayed in the building for about 2.5 hours, after which police officers took him elsewhere.
Jirikovsky donated 468 bitcoins worth CZK 1 billion to the Justice Ministry under previous Minister Pavel Blazek (ODS). The case became public in late May, leading to the resignation of Blazek as justice minister in June. He was replaced by Eva Decroix (ODS), who subsequently commissioned an audit of the case, the first part of which was published by the auditing firm Grant Thornton at the end of July.
According to the audit, the Justice Ministry should not have accepted the bitcoin donation, as it was aware of the significant risk that the donation could have come from the proceeds of crime.
The ministry under Blazek auctioned the donated bitcoins from March to May in 78 auctions. A total of 235 bitcoins were transferred to individuals and commercial buyers on the basis of 41 purchase contracts, totalling CZK 446.6 million. The remaining 233 bitcoins were deposited with the Office for State Representation in Property Affairs. Decroix has refused to do anything with the bitcoins until a criminal investigation reveals whether they were proceeds of crime.
