Final Word from Thursday, June 19, 2025
With great fanfare yesterday, Justice Min. Eva Decroix of ODS unveiled a timeline and accompanying text explanation of the bitcoin affair of her predecessor, Pavel Blažek, without once mentioning Nucleus Marketplace. Yet full political and criminal accountability will be impossible to assign until it becomes clear who first made the connection between Tomáš Jiřikovský and that darknet marketplace and what action that person or government agency - whether domestic or foreign - decided to take and why. Brno State Prosecutor Marek Vagai told Deník N that he didn't know about the connection until the Blažek matter appeared in the media. That was in late-May 2025, but it's doubtful that no one in international law enforcement noticed that Nucleus went down immediately upon the seizure of Jiřikovský's computer hardware in 2016 (which isn't on Decroix's timeline either). Or was the FBI perhaps just as oblivious to the link as Vagai, BIS counterintelligence, the NCOZ crime squad and PM Petr Fiala? [ Czech Republic Regional scandal ]
Glossary of difficult words
fanfare - media attention or elaborate ceremony;
to unveil - to show or announce publicly for the first time;
accountability - responsibility;
to make a connection - to understand that there is a relationship between two or more things;
oblivious - not aware of or concerned about what is happening around one.