WARSAW, Poland — A Polish court on Thursday approved the arrest of the head of a company accused of defrauding thousands of investors, as opposition parties called for a parliamentary commission to investigate the scandal.
The
arrest of Marcin Plichta is the latest development in a scandal
surrounding a financial institution, Amber Gold, which offered high
rates of return on what it claimed were gold-based investments. Instead
of investing the money, it allegedly used funds from new investors to
pay off older ones.
The scheme collapsed in mid-August, unable to
pay its estimated 7,000 clients. So far, investors in the scheme have
reported losses amounting to 182 million zlotys (€56 million), and their
prospects of getting any money back remain unclear.
The affair
has shaken Poland because it exposed a failure by prosecutors to act
even though the country’s financial supervisory body had raised red
flags against Amber Gold since its founding in 2009. Scrutiny has also
focused on Prime Minister Donald Tusk because his son had business
dealings for a time with Plichta.
Plichta was taken into custody
on Wednesday for questioning, and a court in Gdansk, where Amber Gold
was based, announced Thursday that he would remain under arrest for
three months as prosecutors investigate him.
He has been charged with fraud and other financial crimes and could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Meanwhile,
the parliament held an hours-long debate on the matter Thursday.
Opposition lawmakers accused the government of failing to act
effectively against the scheme.
The sharpest criticism came from
members of Law and Justice, a conservative party whose leader, Jaroslaw
Kaczynski, is a political and personal foe of Tusk. Kaczynski wants a
parliamentary commission set up to investigate the matter. He said “you
cannot talk seriously about this affair without mentioning that the head
of Amber Gold had very distinct support from politicians from the
governing party.”
Another opposition lawmaker with a smaller
conservative group, Arkadiusz Mularczyk, accused Tusk more directly in
the parliamentary debate.
“It’s a scandal,” he said. He looked at Tusk and said “you are responsible.”
Such
allegations have not been proven and Tusk denies any wrongdoing by
himself or by his son. Tusk acknowledged, however, that prosecutors made
mistakes in reacting to known warnings about Amber Gold.
“The
prosecutors showed surprising obstinacy in failing to react to the
reports from the financial supervisory body,” Tusk told lawmakers in
parliament.
Another opposition party, the Democratic Left
Alliance, is also critical of the government. One of its leaders,
Ryszard Kalisz, called for the courts and prosecutors to do more to
protect investors.
Polish banks, which are mostly owned by Western
European baking conglomerates, are by and large very safe, with the
Polish state guaranteeing deposits of up to the local equivalent of
€100,000 ($125,500).
However, institutions in the so-called shadow
banking sector — companies that act like banks but are not regulated
the same way — do not enjoy such guarantees. The Amber Gold affair has
focused public attention on this sector and sparked a debate on whether
more can be done to regulate it.
