Viktor Kozeny, a businessman of Czech origin dubbed the pirate of the Caribbean by the Czech press, was detained in the Bahamas today by police. He faces a hearing on his extradition to the United States where a New York court has charged him and another two men with extensive bribery in Azerbaijan.
James Margolin, spokesman for the New York branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told CTK in Prague by phone that nothing stands in the way of Kozeny’s extradition because the Bahamas has an extradition treaty with the United States.
If Kozeny is found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison for money laundering and five years in prison for each of the 27 counts of the charge according to which they breached the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Associated Press has reported.
Kozeny and his accomplices have been charged with an attempt to bribe high-ranking officials in the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan in order to acquire priority in the privatisation of the local oil industry.
The criminal charges have been made against Kozeny and two U.S. citizens, Frederick Bourke Jr and David Pinkerton.
Kozeny, to whom US sources refer as an Irish citizen of Czech origin with residence on the Bahamas, managed Oily Rock Group Limited and Minaret Group Limited at a time when these companies, their share holders and fellow investors made bribery promises, payments and offers of payments to high-placed Azerbaijani politicians.
According to the charge, the investment group wanted to gain stocks in certain state enterprises that were to be privatised in Azerbaijan, including State Oil Co. which has Azerbaijani oil and gas reserves, rights to oil prospecting and to oil refineries.
The threesome allegedly offered and gave bribes to Azerbaijani officials from August 1997 to 1999.
US authorities were alerted to Kozeny’s activities in Azerbaijan by US shareholders in his companies who felt damaged after Azerbaijan gave up its original privatisation plans.
Kozeny is also infamous in his country of origin. He participated in coupon privatisation in then Czechoslovakia after the fall of the previous regime in 1989, during which he gained huge personal wealth that some estimate at USD 200 million.
He has been prosecuted in the Czech Republic for alleged fraud connected with the activities of Harvard Fund, which he directed. Kozeny escaped prosecution by moving to the Bahamas, with which the Czech Republic does not have an extradition treaty.
CTK news edited by the staff of the Prague Daily Monitor, a Monitor CE service.
