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Polish parliament probes pyramid scheme scandal

PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea 07.09.2016 12:41
An investigatory body of Polish parliamentarians probing the Amber Gold financial scandal were on Wednesday meeting to appoint experts and compile a list of witnesses.
Amber Gold pretended to be a legitimate financial institution until its closure in 2012. Photo: Wikimedia CommonsAmber Gold pretended to be a legitimate financial institution until its closure in 2012. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Founded in 2009, Amber Gold had promised customers high returns on deposits, promising to invest in gold. However, when it folded in August 2012, it quickly transpired that the investment firm, based in the northern city of Gdańsk, was in fact a pyramid scheme which swindled clients out of some PLN 850 million.

The parliamentary commission is set to discuss the institutions, both state and private, which will be involved in the investigation, as well as which documents and materials will form the basis of the probe.

“At the first meeting on Wednesday, I will try to convince the other members that we should approach all the institutions mentioned in the commission’s appointment resolution to send in all the documents which they possess pertaining to the case,” said Małgorzata Wassermann, an MP for the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, and head of the commission.

“We expect that this will be a lot. […] Let's see how quickly institutions, ministries and the prosecutor's office will send the documents,” Wassermann said.

The
The head of the Amber Gold parliamentary commission, Małgorzata Wassermann. Photo: PAP/Paweł Supernak

Wassermann told the TVN broadcaster that among the people who she thinks should be questioned are former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (now the president of the European Council), former finance minister Jacek Rostowski, as well as Tusk’s son Michał.

Michał Tusk worked for the OLT Express airline (a now-defunct air carrier wholly owned by Amber Gold) as a PR executive, as well as holding a post at the state-owned Lech Wałęsa airport in Gdańsk, where Amber Gold was based.

“It is not my aim to bring over Donald Tusk and make life unpleasant for him. My goal is to explain how something like this [scandal] happened, which in practice seems impossible,” Wassermann said. (rg)

tags: Amber Gold
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