Top businessman appeals to Polish PM to intervene following ´terrifying´ police raids

by Martin Banks

The raids on businesses run by Zdiszlaw Kmetko involved 100 SWAT officers, 50 policemen, 60 plain clothes detectives and about 70 vehicles.

It means that up to 7,000 people employed by Mr Kmetko cannot be paid because the District Prosecutor in Wroclaw has frozen the company’s bank account.

The Polish-born entrepreneur says they now risk losing their jobs unless the company is permitted to restart operations within days.

The companies raided by the Polish authorities operate an employment agency and outsourcing business that serves 147 small businesses in Poland.

The police raids were described as particularly brutal.

A SWAT team smashed through the bedroom window of an 84-year-old grandmother in her private apartment to carry out a "routine" enquiry. Plain clothes police officers in unmarked cars swooped on a 64-year-old grandmother in her private home and handcuffed her.

A pregnant mother was said to have been "terrified" by the ordeal.

Speaking from Poland, she asked, “Who ordered this? I have nothing to do with this company and did not understand what the police wanted. Why did they smash into my private home?"

Servers from the companies’ offices were removed and computers, mobile phones, televisions and file records were among other items seized by police and taken for investigation. Computer games of teenage children were taken from private homes.

Mr Kmetko compared the actions of the Polish police with a similar investigation of his companies by the Berlin State Prosecutor.

The German investigation gave all his companies a clean bill of health last month and exonerated him from any charges.

By comparison, he said, "The Polish authorities have deliberately forced closure of the same companies in the process of looking for new evidence. They have ripped the heart out of my businesses and terrorised my workers who now fear for their future."

Ten workers face criminal charges and six are in prison pending investigation of the charges against them.

“The important thing now is to consider the future of the employees and our clients,” a spokesman for Mr Kmetko said.

“It is urgent to pay our workers their salaries. We have the funds to do so, and wish to meet these obligations as quickly as possible. We urge the authorities to unblock the bank account so that we can pay them, and set up a structure that will allow interim administration of the companies so that we can keep the business going and respect our responsibilities and commitments to our employees and our clients.”

“We wish to co-operate in full with the Polish authorities, as we have already done in Germany, and willingly supply all of the information and documentation required by the investigators to assist their work.

"It makes no economic sense to deprive 7,000 workers of their employment and their wages. We are shocked and saddened by the tactics that have been used to seize data and forcibly shut down our company operations,” he added.

Mr Kmetko has written to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to request his intervention in the case.

“I operate an ordinary outsourcing business and employment agency,” he said, “It is nonsense to describe it as an organised criminal operation, and everybody in my companies knows this to be true.”

“I accept my responsibilities to pay all of the taxes and social security payments due to the Polish State for my business operations. I appeal for a return of common sense and order in the interests of my employees and business clients, that we be allowed to restart our operations in a proper and civilised way, and that my employees who are currently in detention should be released pending conclusion of the investigations by the authorities."

He added, "We owe this in the best interests of the workers and also the Polish economy.”