Final Word from Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Czechs often say, Peníze až na prvním místě, which roughly translates as, "Money isn't everything; it's the only thing." Why, then, are the prosecutors and police so bad at counting it? As part of the hullabaloo surrounding the arrests last week, the authorities announced that they had seized Kč 130-150m in cash and tens of kilograms of gold. How, pray tell, can the police confiscate money and gold without knowing exactly how much there was? How will anyone know how much needs to be returned when and if the charges against the defendants aren't proven? Especially since the CR doesn't have a law requiring people to demonstrate the source of their assets? Remember when the police confiscated "several billion" crowns in the search of Radovan Krejčíř's Černošice estate in 2005? We still don't know how much of it was real, how much of it was fake, and how much of it went into a police retirement fund.[Czech Republic raid Jana Nagyová Roman Janoušek Ivo rittig crisis Petr Nečas]
Glossary of difficult words
Peníze až na prvním místě - an exact translation would have to be something like, "Money is down at the very top of the list";
hullabaloo - a commotion, fuss;
pray tell - please tell us; in this context, pray is used to make an urgent request.