Poland gambling tax scandal resurfaces

Poland’s national public prosecutor, Bogdan Święczkowski, has announced that he has reopened a 2006 – 2011 investigation into gambling tax irregularities which was closed during the tenure of the former Tusk government.

Święczkowski said he has analysed the case files, which include the questionable removal from the original case of a prosecutor who had planned to bring charges against the deputy minister of finance at the time of the scandal.

The affair ultimately resulted in several top government officials resigning, including then-Interior Minister and Deputy PM Grzegorz Schetyna (who remains in politics as the leader of the opposition Civic Platform party).

The scandal became public when a national daily newspaper reported on meetings between Tusk government ministers and gambling industry representatives in 2009 on the registration of slot machines, which were followed by lobbying to halt the implementation of increased taxation on betting.

The original investigation was closed by the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw in April 2011 on grounds that there was not enough evidence to win a criminal court case.

The head of the Tusk government, Donald Tusk, is now president of the European Council.