Czech police intervene in the Railway Administration, allegedly for million-dollar contracts

Criminals from the National Centre against Organised Crime (NCOZ) have been intervening at the Prague headquarters of the Czech Railways Administration and other locations since Tuesday morning. According to the server Odkryto.cz, the action concerns construction contracts worth hundreds of millions of crowns, such as the renovation of the railway junction in Pardubice or the construction of a station in Brno.

"I can only state that our department is conducting criminal proceedings today. The submission of information is reserved for the High State Prosecutor's Office in Prague," NCOZ spokesman Jaroslav Ibehej told Odkryto.cz.

According to reports by iDnes and Seznam Zprávy, the detectives were also interested in the director of the Railway Administration, Jiří Svoboda, and the head of the Directorate of Roads and Motorways, Radek Mátl.

Nela Eberl Friebová, a spokeswoman for the Railway Administration, confirmed that the police had asked the authority for some documents.

On 11 November, police also intervened at the Prague headquarters of the Roads and Motorways Directorate. The raid was related to the examination of public contracts.

(tasr, max)