Polish Court Detains Fifth Suspect in Zondacrypto Exchange Probe

In brief

• A Katowice court approved pretrial detention for Roman Ż., charged with computer fraud and organized crime membership.
• Three others were held in pretrial detention last week over an alleged plan to take control of Zondacrypto founder Sylwester Suszek's assets.
• One charge alleges nearly €8 million left the exchange operator's account to buy property in France.

A Polish court has approved pretrial detention for a fifth suspect in the investigation into crypto exchange Zondacrypto, Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek said late on Monday.

Roman Ż., named under the Polish convention of abbreviating suspects' surnames, was charged earlier that day with membership of an organized criminal group and, within it, misappropriating clients' funds by means of computer fraud.

Prosecutors allege the group took no less than 7.8 million złoty, (around $2 million), from users of the exchange by making unauthorized changes, deletions and additions to its data, and by interfering with how the exchange processed and transmitted it. He faces up to 10 years.

Police detained him in Silesia on Saturday and seized exchange documents. He denied the charges and gave a statement.

The Zondacrypto saga

The exchange launched in Katowice in 2014 as BitBay, founded by Suszek, and took the Zondacrypto name after shifting its registration to Estonia in 2020 under a parent company, BB Trade Estonia. It claimed 1.3 million clients, most of them Polish.