Poland’s Olympic Committee president Radosław Piesiewicz was detained in Warsaw on Thursday, August 27, 2026, after prosecutors tied him to the investigation of collapsed crypto exchange Zondacrypto.
Officers from Poland’s Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime detained Radosław Piesiewicz at his home in Warsaw on the morning of August 27, 2026. The Katowice branch of the National Prosecutor’s Office ordered the action inside the criminal case against failed exchange Zondacrypto.
Wirtualna Polska reported the detention at 10:11 CEST. TVN24 followed at 10:19 CEST. Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek confirmed minutes later that “Radosław P.” had been detained and that further details would come after questioning in Katowice.
Piesiewicz has not been convicted. Prosecutors had not published formal charges by Thursday afternoon. Detention is a procedural step and does not prove guilt.
Why prosecutors moved now
The arrest follows a joint report published on Monday, August 24, 2026, by Szymon Jadczak of Wirtualna Polska and Michał Fuja of TVN24’s Superwizjer.
The journalists said Piesiewicz accepted a Patek Philippe Calatrava watch worth €40,000, about PLN 172,000, from Przemysław Kral, then chief of Zondacrypto. They also described trips to Monaco and Bergamo, hotel stays, and match tickets for Piesiewicz and relatives. The benefits listed in that article were estimated at PLN 190,000 to PLN 216,000.
WP sources said Piesiewicz allegedly offered to intercede with UOKiK president Tomasz Chróstny and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Both men deny any intervention. UOKiK said it referred the exchange file to law enforcement in September 2025.
TVN24 later said, citing unofficial sources, that officers found a watch during the home search. RMF FM reported that Piesiewicz did not resist and was to be transferred to Katowice.
At a briefing on August 27, Żurek said the €40,000 watch is one element prosecutors will check. He refused to preview charges or a detention request. He also said authorities have secured more than PLN 100 million so far for possible customer compensation.
Piesiewicz’s Account
Piesiewicz has said he received the watch from Kral but paid for it himself in cash installments, later specifying Swiss francs rather than euros. He called the reporting a smear campaign and pointed to a certificate of origin in his name.
WP and TVN24 said the only payment document they obtained is an invoice dated November 19, 2025, issued in Kral’s name and marked paid. They also reported a meeting in Monaco on November 28, 2025. Those claims are now part of a criminal file, not a court finding.
The Olympic Sponsorship Deal
Zondacrypto became general sponsor of the Polish Olympic Committee on October 22, 2025, after a contract was signed in Monaco. PKOl headquarters was branded the “zondacrypto Olympic Center.” In February 2026 a large exchange neon sign went up on a building that had carried the name of John Paul II for two decades.
PKOl then promised token bonuses to athletes who finished fourth to eighth at the Winter Olympics in Italy. Those tokens were not delivered in usable form before the exchange failed. The neon was removed at the end of April 2026. In June, PKOl said private sponsors covered PLN 1.1 million owed to ski jumpers Kacper Tomasiak and Paweł Wąsek, speed skater Vladimir Siemirunnij, and two coaches.
Piesiewicz said he signed the deal in good faith because PKOl lacked enough state funding. He also said he personally lost money on the platform. By August 24, 52 sports federations had called for his resignation and 82 of 106 PKOl members had asked for a general assembly.
How Zondacrypto collapsed
Zondacrypto grew out of Katowice-based BitBay, founded in 2014 by Sylwester Suszek. After Poland’s watchdog placed BitBay on a warning list in 2018, the business moved under an Estonian licence held by BB Trade Estonia OÜ and later rebranded as Zonda, then Zondacrypto. Suszek disappeared on March 10, 2022, after a meeting in Czeladź. That case is now joined to the exchange probe.
On April 6, 2026, money.pl reported, based on work by Recoveris, that the main Bitcoin hot wallet had fallen from a monthly average of about 55.7 BTC in August 2024 to 0.18 BTC in March 2026. Kral called the withdrawal freeze a temporary technical issue.
On April 16 he posted a video citing a wallet said to hold about 4,500 BTC and claimed the missing founder held the keys. The site went dark around April 23. Estonia suspended the parent licence on May 18 and revoked it on June 29, 2026. The ZND token later lost more than 99.9% of its value.
What the criminal case covers
The Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice opened a fraud and money-laundering investigation on April 17, 2026. Initial damage was put at no less than PLN 350 million. More than 3,600 complaints have been filed. Some later media reports have cited damage as high as PLN 2.4 billion. That higher figure is not an official prosecutorial total.
Investigators seized more than 250 terabytes of exchange data, formed a joint team with Estonia on May 28, 2026, and obtained a French order blocking €4 million tied to a Monaco company linked to suspects. On July 30, 2026, the exchange file was merged with the Suszek disappearance case.
Kral left Poland after the collapse. Lawyer Roman Giertych said he has represented him since May. On August 25, 2026, prosecutors said the inquiry includes possible offenses tied to Zondacrypto funding and “a possible financial benefit transferred to Radosław Piesiewicz.” Onet reported that Kral has been charged with participation in fraud on a vast scale. Prosecutors have not confirmed any crown-witness status. Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski called the affair a huge scandal. Those comments are political statements, not court findings.
What the detention means for crypto users
The case sits in a familiar crypto exchange pattern: weak proof of reserves, a licence in one EU state and customers in another, and sports sponsorship used as a trust signal.
Customer funds remain frozen. Even the lowest official damage estimate of PLN 350 million is larger than the more than PLN 100 million Żurek said has been secured for possible restitution. Piesiewicz is expected to be questioned in Katowice, after which prosecutors may file charges and can ask a court for pre-trial detention.
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