Prague - Czech police brought charges against ten people over the ProMoPro case. Aktualne.cz has the text of the charging document at its disposal.
The document indicates that the public contract awarded to ProMoPro in 2008 was overpriced by CZK 388 million (EUR 15.5 million).
ProMoPro was contracted to provide audiovisual equipment needed for the Czech EU presidency in 2009.
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Some of the money was divided between the ProMoPro owners and its subcontractors, and CZK 135 million was transferred to an Austrian bank account.
The bank account belonged to Libor Veverka, one of the accused. However the police does not know if the sum was exclusively for Veverka, or whether he was supposed to divide it with other people.
The investigation indicates that the fraud was carefully prepared.
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ProMoPro signed the contract with the office of the government in September 2008. One month later, Veverka opened an account at Vontobel Österreich AG on behalf of London-based Deeside Services Solution.
NWDC, a firm contracted by ProMoPro, transferred in total CZK 135 million to the account. On January 8, 2010, Veverka forwarded CZK 50 million to Hunton Systems, a Seychelles-based company which had its account at the same Austrian bank.
Eventually, all the money was frozen by the Austrian authorities on money laundering charges.
Mysterious Afro-American mastermind
Veverka claims that the real owner of the companies was Erickson Raymond Christopher. Veverka described him as an Afro-American with contacts all over the world.
The mysterious man allegedly asked Veverka to set up two bank accounts in Austria. Veverka claims he did not know that millions of public money was transferred to the accounts.
Alexandr Vondra, currently the Defense Minister in the government of PM Nečas, was the Deputy PM for European affairs in 2008, and was responsible for awarding the contract to ProMoPro.
Crucially, Libor Veverka knew Alexandr Vondra personally. Veverka worked for Vondra at the Czech Foreign Ministry at the beginning of the 2000s, when Vondra was in charge of organizing NATO's 2002 Prague summit.
