Police charged five people with fraud related to the construction of a wellness center

Ceske Budějovice - The police charged five people a few days ago due to subsidy fraud in the construction of a wellness hotel in Hluboká nad Vltavou in the Českobudějovice region. The Regional Operational Program supported this project with a grant of 140 million crowns in 2008. However, according to investigators, the construction was accompanied by discrepancies, such as invoices for work that did not correspond to the reality. This was reported today by the news website of Czech Radio (ČRo) iRozhlas.

"All five detained individuals were charged by the investigator of the National Center Against Organized Crime with two particularly serious crimes - harming the financial interests of the European Union and subsidy fraud. After the procedures carried out, all accused persons were released from custody," said the spokesman of the center, Jaroslav Ibehej. Investigators froze a total of 32 million crowns in the accounts of the accused.

The Regional Council Office of the Cohesion Region, which supported the wellness project in Hluboká nad Vltavou from its operational program, was led in 2008 by director Jiří Trnka. He later left the position, as he was prosecuted by the police for intervening in the approval and evaluation of individual subsidy applications. The court subsequently punished him with a three-year suspended sentence. The office released 50 million for the construction of the hotel; the remaining amount was not paid because disbursement was stopped in 2014 due to doubts about the use of the subsidy.

Trnka recently became the administrator of a trust fund that manages land in Českých Budějovicích worth tens of millions of crowns. The assets were transferred to the Jihoinvest fund last year by businessman Vlaidmír Hlavatý, one of the five charged with subsidy fraud in the construction of the wellness center.