Final Word from Monday, August 8, 2016

Interior Min. Milan Chovanec announced last week that he plans to create a new financial police as of next year to go after white-collar crime. This is a very sophisticated form of crime, he said, and all our efforts and means need to be deployed against it. It's strange for Chovanec to assign so much importance to fighting white-collar crime without once mentioning the role in this of the Czech National Bank. If, for example, a "politically exposed" person bought a luxury apartment in Pilsen and declared a purchase price in Parliament of half what was stated on the website of the real-estate agency in question, an alert banker might report this to the CNB as a suspicious transaction. What happened to the rest of the money? Was it a bribe? Or was it perhaps diverted to financing terrorism, as defined under Czech law (253/2008 Sb.)? Of course Chovanec doesn't need to wait for a new police unit to go after such a potentially dangerous individual. [Czech Republic Mánesgate terrorism anti-money laundering]