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SIX people were arrested in Poland today in anti-corruption officials’ investigation of the 2014 sell-off of state-owned chemical company Ciech.
One of those arrested was Pawel Tamborski, a deputy treasury minister at the time that the Polish government sold its shares in the firm.
Anti-corruption officers began their investigation into the sale in 2015 and later that year showed up at the Warsaw stock exchange to ask Mr Tamborski, then the exchange’s chief executive, for data on the privatisation.
Ciech, which employed about 4,000 people at the time of the sale, was sold to KI Chemistry. KI was controlled by Jan Kulczyk, then Poland’s richest man, who died in 2015.
Kulczyk Investments, which controls Mr Kulczyk’s estate, insisted that everything was above board.
Central Anti-Corruption Bureau official Piotr Kaczorek told the IAR news agency that the ongoing investigation had flagged up irregularities in the deal.
He said that investigators suspected the abuse of power for financial gain by those involved in the deal, causing substantial damage to treasury interests.
Poland’s current right-wing Law and Justice party government opposed the sale.
