The 2025 Czech government Bitcoin scandal was a scandal in the Czech Republic that involved a donation of 468 Bitcoins to the country's Ministry of Justice. The Czech daily newspaper, Deník N, reported that the Minister of Justice, Pavel Blažek, accepted the donation from , which was worth one billion Czech koruna at the time (approximately $45,000,000 USD). Jiřikovský had previously been convicted of embezzlement, drug trafficking, and illegal possession of weapons in 2017.
After Jiřikovský's early release from prison in 2021, he attempted to recover the Bitcoin wallets. In 2023, he hired a lawyer acquainted with the Justice Minister, hoping to recover the seized devices containing the wallets. Deník N reported the suspicious bitcoin transfer to the Czech Ministry of Justice in 2025. The Ministry was notified by the donor's lawyer on 26 May 2025, that the bitcoin had been seized.
Pavel Blažek, a member of the Civic Democratic Party, subsequently resigned on 31 May 2025. Blažek stated that he approved the donation without verifying its origin but denied that his actions were illegal. The donation was not returned to Jiříkovský.
On 18 June 2025, 98 of the 192 members of the Parliament voted to oppose a no-confidence motion against the government of Prime Minister Petr Fiala, which was filed by the opposition party ANO 2011. This was the fourth no-confidence vote survived by the Fiala government since entering power in 2021.
Background The controversy concerns a donation made to the Czech Ministry of Justice by Tomáš Jiříkovský, a convicted criminal who operated the dark web marketplace known as the Sheep Marketplace, which was used for illegal transactions. Jiříkovský was convicted in 2017 for offenses including embezzlement, drug trafficking, and illegal arms possession. After his early release from prison in 2021, he sought to reclaim the bitcoin that had been seized during his arrest. Later, he donated 30% of these assets to the Ministry of Justice.
Public disclosure
The case was uncovered by Zdislava Pokorná from Deník N, who published an article on 28 May 2025 listing Tomáš Jiřikovský among the wealthiest Czechs, with an estimated net worth of approximately two billion Czech koruna (CZK). Sheep Marketplace, operated by Jiřikovský, used bitcoin as currency to keep vendors and consumers pseudonymous. Jiřikovský earned substantial profits through commissions of each transaction. While running the marketplace, he was defrauded of 5,400 bitcoins by Nathan Gibson and Sean Mackert, who exploited a vulnerability in the marketplace's source code. In December 2013, they managed to steal nearly 841 bitcoins from buyers and sellers on the platform, the equivalent of over 16 million Czech koruna at that time, or around 22–24 million Czech koruna in 2025.
Jiřikovský's sentence In 2017, a court sentenced Jiřikovský to nine years in prison for embezzlement, drug trafficking, and illegal possession of firearms. He was released for his good behavior after serving half of his sentence (specifically four years, seven months, and seven days). On 19 November 2020, Břeclav District Court granted his request for conditional release, establishing a six-year probation period ending in November 2026.
Return of computing equipment
Since 2021, legal proceedings have been underway regarding seized electronics. Initially, the and the ruled that the hardware should be returned, but only after its contents were wiped. This was intended to prevent Jiřikovský from regaining access to remaining bitcoins through the data on the devices. However, in 2023, the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic overturned this, ruling that the data should not be deleted. The court held that if it cannot be proven beyond doubt that the computers contained bitcoins obtained through suspicious means, Jiřikovský is entitled to the return of the devices in their original state.
In January 2025, issued a final ruling to return the main portion of the hardware to Jiřikovský without formatting it, after Jiřikovský claimed he had forgotten the passwords to the computers. The court ordered the wiping of only three laptops and one data storage device (an external drive), where experts determined he could have gained access to crypto-wallets. Eight encrypted devices were returned intact, including two encrypted computers, three phones, and three tablets.
Upon the return of the hardware, Jiřikovský also regained access to cryptocurrency wallets containing assets other than bitcoin. Specifically, he accessed Bitcoin Cash valued at 16 million CZK at the time. The official notary record of the bitcoin handover contained no mention of these alternative cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin donation agreement The initial correspondence from attorney Kárim Titz, containing an offer of bitcoins, reached the Ministry in mid-August 2023. It was received by Deputy Minister Antonín Stanislav (ODS), who subsequently resigned in the spring of 2024 following a series of unrelated allegations. The attorney proposed the transfer of high-value bitcoins to the Czech Republic on the condition that the state return seized hardware to Jiřikovský. Titz argued that Jiřikovský had already completed his sentence for operating the illegal darknet market Sheep Marketplace, his assets had been forfeited, and the police had failed to establish that the bitcoins stored on his computer were proceeds of crime (an argument later echoed by Minister Blažek). At that time, law enforcement was unaware of any connection between Jiřikovský and the Nucleus marketplace.
In mid-December 2024, , the Political Deputy to Minister Blažek and Vice-Chairman of Mayors and Independents (STAN) movement, received an official email as part of his duties at the Ministry of Justice addressing a previously submitted offer by attorney Titz regarding a bitcoin donation to the state. The response from the Deputy, and by extension the Minister, stated that under the law, the hardware containing the cryptocurrencies could only be released to Jiřikovský by a court, and that the Ministry is prohibited from interfering with judicial proceedings.
As early as January 2025, Titz suggested in an email to Ministry of the Interior employees that the funds in question might not be entirely legitimate. Legal experts from the Ministry of Finance subsequently drafted a formal warning on 12 February 2025 in response to documents received from the Ministry of Justice regarding a proposed donation agreement with Jiřikovský. The legal opinion cautioned that the donation could represent a moral hazard, that the bitcoins might originate from criminal activity, and that the contract could serve as a pretext for money laundering. However, then-Minister of Finance Zbyněk Stanjura did not review the warning until 25 March—three weeks after the contract with Jiřikovský had been signed—as the documents were intended as briefing materials for a scheduled meeting with Minister Blažek.
The three-page legal warning was not delivered to Stanjura in a timely manner by his chief of staff, . Benda declined to comment on why he waited 40 days to inform the Minister about the donation. His brother, Marek Benda, later characterized Filip Benda's involvement in the affair as a mistake. Despite pressure from the parliamentary opposition and government MPs from the STAN party to dismiss him, Stanjura retained Benda in his position.
In March 2025, attorney Kárim Titz proposed an agreement to the Ministry of Justice whereby the Ministry would receive 30% of the contents of cryptocurrency wallet upon its joint opening. Titz subsequently confirmed that Jiřikovský's objective was to utilize the donation as tax deduction. Titz further asserted that "the court records did not indicate that the devices contained any proceeds of crime. On the contrary, as early as 2013, the client possessed 1,172 bitcoins with no connection to criminal activity, a fact supported by expert testimony."
The negotiations for the bitcoin donation agreement were conducted by Radomír Daňhel, a former Deputy Minister of Justice. During the process, Daňhel repeatedly sought to clarify what the potential response of (FAÚ) would be regarding the donated bitcoins should they be found to originate from criminal activity. According to Titz, Jiřikovský's specific motivations were never addressed during the negotiation of the donation to the Ministry.
Titz stated that, within the draft agreement, he proposed that the Ministry of Finance, the Financial Analytical Office, the , and the all be informed of the pending transaction. However, the matter was not reported to the FAÚ until a week later, with Daňhel personally briefing FAÚ leadership only in late March. The Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office was officially notified of the transaction on 1 April, coinciding with the appointment of Lenka Bradáčová as head of the office by Minister Blažek. In July 2025, Bradáčová provided a formal clarification regarding the timeline of when the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office was first apprised of the contract between the Ministry of Justice and Jiřikovský. Subsequent police findings concerning the prosecution's involvement in the case led to Bradáčová's recusal from the legal supervision of the investigation to ensure impartiality. Bradáčová officially learned of the donation on her first day in office in April 2025. At around the same time, Daňhel inquired by letter how she intended to use the funds from the accepted gift. The then-High Public Prosecutor stated that the money would be allocated for electronic equipment across the public prosecution system. Journalists noted discrepancies in the statements contained in the case file: while Bradáčová was officially informed of the donation on April 1, 2025, the then-Minister of Justice, Blažek, had informed Kateřina Arajmu, Director of the Office for Government Representation in Property Affairs, that Bradáčová had known about the donation as early as February 6 of that year.
Furthermore, journalists pointed out inconsistencies between the testimonies of Arajmu and her former deputy regarding the ministry being warned prior to the acceptance of the gift. The deputy also confirmed that his office lacked any prior experience in verifying the provenance of cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin issuance Blažek initially stated that the crypto wallet was opened in the presence of a notary, who, according to the official record, arrived on March 7. However, an investigation by Radiožurnál revealed that hundreds of bitcoins valued at approximately two billion CZK had already been transferred to two separate accounts a day earlier. One of the accounts belongs to Jiřikovský, while the owner of the second remains unknown. Contrary to initial erroneous assumptions that the wallet contained 5366 bitcoins (roughly 12.5 billion CZK), which would have netted the Ministry up to 3.7 billion CZK under a one-third profit-sharing agreement, these figures were not confirmed. The discrepancy arose because the initial estimate included bitcoins that had remained dormant since 2016. Consequently, the final figure used for the calculation was 1,562 bitcoins, of which the state received 468.468.