Final Word from Friday, July 15, 2011
Back in mid-2005, the police seized Kč 3bn in cash from the Prague home of mobsterRadovan Krejčíř, only to admit later that just Kč 9.5m of it was real. The publicnever learned the truth about the other Kč 2.99bn. (Did it even exist? Why didn't theCNB officially list it as counterfeit? Or did it "go missing"?) Police are now lookinginto the mass counterfeiting of Prague transit tickets. The quality is so good, and thedistribution so well organized, that it's hard to imagine there wasn't official complicity.Managers of any normal FMCG company would notice in a split second if salesstarted plummeting because of counterfeits, but DP Praha transit company was nonethe wiser. Thanks be to God (and Bém, and Voráček) for the Opencard. It will reducethe room in the future for counterfeiting. Until someone starts counterfeiting Opencards,DP Praha fails to notice, and the police investigation hits the usual roadblock.
Glossary of difficult words
to go missing - to get lost; to not be present or included when expected or supposed to be;
official complicity - involvement in an illegal activity or other wrongdoing by someone in an official position;
FMCG - fast-moving consumer goods;
a split second - an instant; a very short period of time;
to plummet - to decrease rapidly in value or amount;
to be none the wiser - to not be aware of something; to know no more than before;
thanks be to God - another way to say "thank God";
to hit a roadblock - to run into an obstacle or hindrance that causes further progress to end or be delayed.