TL;DR:
- The Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice formally charged Roman Ż. with two criminal counts, including large-scale financial fraud.
- The platform Zondacrypto suspended operations in April 2026, leaving users with estimated losses of at least $94 million.
- The criminal docket consolidated money laundering charges with the unsolved disappearance of Sylwester Suszek, the original founder of BitBay.
A fifth suspect in the criminal proceedings probing the Zondacrypto scandal was formally charged this Monday by the Polish Public Prosecutor’s Office. The digital asset exchange, formerly known as BitBay, has been under intense public scrutiny since April 2026.
The new defendant was identified under Polish privacy laws as Roman Ż., a former business partner of the firm’s original founder, Sylwester Suszek. Judicial authorities reported that the individual faces two criminal counts involving large-scale fraud and alleged money laundering schemes. Law enforcement officers executed the arrest over the weekend on Polish soil. The Public Prosecutor’s Office announced it will request pre-trial detention before the competent court. During initial questioning, the accused maintained his innocence and rejected all charges filed against him.
The exchange’s operational collapse emerged publicly on April 17, 2026, when the platform halted trading and suspended withdrawals for over one million registered accounts. According to figures from the Katowice Prosecutor’s Office, affected clients have reported cumulative losses exceeding $94 million. By the close of June 2026, the case registry had logged more than 3,600 formal complaints submitted by aggrieved users.
Financial Background and the BitBay Connection
The company began operating in 2014 under the BitBay brand before completing a corporate restructuring in 2021 to rebrand as Zondacrypto. The investigation took on greater technical complexity after forensic experts discovered that the firm could not access a cold storage wallet safeguarding roughly 4,500 units of Bitcoin. Prosecutors argue this inaccessible pool of assets triggered the liquidity shortfall that culminated in frozen client balances.
The judicial case extends beyond the exchange’s financial operations. Prosecutors incorporated into the proceedings an active missing-person inquiry into the whereabouts of Sylwester Suszek, who vanished in March 2022 after attending a business meeting in Czeladź.
The initial round of detentions took place in July 2026, when authorities arrested three individuals identified as Anna P., Jaromira W., and Rafal Z. Subsequently, an international arrest warrant accompanied by an Interpol Red Notice was issued for another suspect who remains abroad. Additionally, the president of the Polish Olympic Committee, Radosław Piesiewicz, was previously indicted in the judicial proceedings for allegedly receiving payments in exchange for protection and for favoring specific creditors as the firm faced imminent collapse.
On the civil front, the Harju County Court in Estonia admitted a formal bankruptcy petition on July 6, 2026, tied to the corporate entities operating the exchange. Court documents state that the Estonian court has scheduled a hearing to decide whether to declare formal bankruptcy, an outcome that would grant creditors a statutory two-month window to file their capital recovery claims.
