Once upon a time, in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, a crook called Ivo Rittig got caught and was sent to jail. How times have changed!




Hospodarske noviny reveals today (see here) that Ivo Rittig is a thief. Yes, it is true. And a grocer to boot.

In 1987-8, long before he had ever heard of the British Virgin Islands, the latter-day spiritual leader of ODS was sentenced to nine years in prison for squirreling away, over two years, Kc 766,000 from the grocery shop he ran in Prague on the corner of Stepanska and Zitna.

That is a lot of coffee beans! In today’s money, he pocketed roughly Kc 7,66 million. For readers not accustomed to handling such large sums, this is the equivalent of 76,600 1kg packets of Marila Standard ground roasted coffee beans –assuming you took advantage of the Tesco special offer at only Kc 99,99.

Rittig was released in 1990 by presidential amnesty, and his criminal record wiped clean. Since then, he has moved up in the world, even if his fingers have stayed in the proverbial ‘till’.

Cokeville Assets, an offshore shell company assumed by Swiss investigators to be controlled by the former purveyor of dry goods is said to have received Kc 130 million (that would get you 1.3 million 1kg packets of Marila Standard ground roasted) in commission from the sale of Appian’s Skoda Power, then part of Skoda Plzen.


Moving up: U Prašné brány 1

Given that Appian acquired all of Skoda Plzen from the state for just 8 million packets of Marila Standard in 2002, and then sold Skoda Power alone for a staggering 115 million packets in 2009, the size of Rittig’s commission seems reasonable.

And in 2003, shortly after acquiring Skoda Plzen, Appian transferred the equivalent of 1 million 1kg packets, via the Virgin Islands and Liechtenstein, to Marila Invest (think Tomas Pitr), the proud owner of the nation's favourite brand of roasted coffee bean.

And they all lived happily ever after.