The rampant and unrestrained behaviour of the mafia in Slovakia during the 1990s and the governments of Vladimir Mečiar was associated with state support. Mečiar’s entourage and he himself had direct input into mafia decision-making through the abuse of the Slovak Information Service. This was run by Mečiar’s right-hand man Ivan Lexa. The regulation was applied in practice by the deputy of the service Jaroslav Svechota.
Svěchota began his career in the late 1960s in the StB administration. The careerist was in charge of counter-intelligence activities aimed at liquidating the communist opposition living in Austria and Germany after their escape. Among other things, he was credited with activities directed against the activities of Alexander Dubček. After the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in 1968, he was dismissed from the StB, but after a pause he returned to its ranks as a collaborator. After 1990, citing his previous dismissal from the StB, he was placed among the leaders of the newly emerging structures of the secret services, in charge of the rehabilitation of the relationship concerning the former federal buildings.
Svěchota became Deputy of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Democracy of the Federal Ministry of the Interior for Slovakia and Deputy Minister of the Slovak Interior. Jan Ruml, First Deputy Federal Minister of the Interior, dismissed him because of suspicions of manipulation of the dissolved StB volumes.
However, it was this manipulation that marked the start of Jaroslav Svěchota’s further career. Svěchota was behind the confiscation of a series of StB files concerning not only Vladimír Mečiar and his entourage, but also his opponents. This was the beginning of several years of cooperation. After Mečiar’s HZDS won the 1994 elections, Ivan Lexa, the right hand of the Slovak autocrat, was appointed director of the Slovak Information Service, and he chose Jaroslav Svěchota as director of the counterintelligence service and his deputy. The new management of the Information Service established the Department of Special Operations, abbreviated as OŠO. It was a special commando designed to carry out non-standard operations. And it was the OŠO that was behind a series of state actions in coordination with organised crime. The OŠO was later replaced by the 52nd Division of the SIS, but its activities did not differ from those of the previous unit. The department carried out, for example, a physical attack on KDH MP František Miklosek and set fire to the cars of several journalists.
Svěchota was detained after Mečiar left the opposition in 1998. He has been accused of involvement in other well-known cases such as the Triptych, the Adoration of the Three Kings and the Legalizers. Mečiar’s leverage in the state, however, continued to persist, allowing Svěchota to be released and Ivan Lexa to flee abroad. Jaroslav Svěchota died on 8 November 2004 as a free citizen. He was never punished for his deeds.
Several legislative measures, such as the establishment of the institution of the cooperating defendant, have helped to eliminate primitive fraud. This made it impossible for speculators to indulge in crookedness without fear of testimony against them. The establishment of specialised units to focus on economic crime was also significant. However, these reforms came only towards the end of Mečiar’s hegemony.
The Czech underworld, unlike the Slovak one, was formed mainly around Russian branches, which expanded into Prague thanks to the good knowledge and background that had been historically built up during the former regime. Since the early 1990s, the Czech Republic has been not only a convenient destination for Russians to deposit their money, but also a wild card allowing them to connect to the Western world and legalize money obtained through illegal activities in other regions.
The free and long very lightly regulated environment favoured the legalisation and anonymisation of dirty money. This is also why “dudes in law”, i.e. heads of Russian mafia clans, were active in the Czech Republic. The expansion of the Russian mafia, however, slowed down after the famous raid on the U Holubu restaurant and, at least on the surface, the activities of Russian-speaking gangsters in the Czech Republic ceased to be visible. A transformation took place, as a result of which the Russians in the Czech Republic focused exclusively on laundering the proceeds of crime, which investigators are still uncovering today.
Moreover, Germany’s proximity and natural historical links to the West favoured linking transactions with smuggling operations. Another local phenomenon for decades has been the massive presence of gangs from Vietnam, which have exploited the historical background created by the local Vietnamese community. In a free country, Vietnamese organised crime has made its profits mainly from economic crime, usury, smuggling and drug production and distribution. It is the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic that has been behind the rapid spread of methamphetamine and marijuana not only domestically but also in neighbouring Germany. The problem has not been solved and the dominant position of Vietnamese gangs has been strengthened by future closer links to Western markets.
