Massive Fraud Investigation: 107,000 iPhones and 361,000 AirPods Disappear in Mamut.cz E-Shop Scandal Linked to Billionaire Vladimir Kovar

The e-shop issue has been dragging on for over a year Mamut.czwith which 107 thousand disappeared iPhones and 361 thousand AirPods. Mamut belonged to the concern of the billionaire Vladimir Kovar. The Kovář Group A unicorn even Mamut’s parent company, known as Plus4U, claims from the start that, despite their ownership link with Mamut, they themselves were victims of fraud. The companies T-Mobile and J&T Leasing, which participated in the supply of electronics to Mamut, are also defending themselves.

In the company’s public bankruptcy filing Mommywho operated the Mamut store, a forensic investigation by Surveilligence, a financial crime detection company, has now revealed. His report was created by the creditors’ committee.

The investigation deals, for example, with the indirect connections that Kovář has with companies behind the possible fraud or financial work between the e-shop and Kovář’s companies. Likewise, the study showed that the only source of Mamut’s income was sales from two companies, from which electronics worth billions of crowns disappeared.

The two companies named are JAE and SBJ Trade. Their owner is businessman Břetislav Janoušek, a key figure in the Mamut case. It was his two companies that bought billions worth of Apple electronics from Mamut, mainly to rent them out. But the tools disappeared to an unknown location. The case has been under investigation by the National Center Against Organized Crime since last year.

“The matter is still under investigation,” said the spokesman NCOZ Jaroslav Ibehej.

Mammoth’s bankruptcy administrator described the current forensic report as a special event.

“The findings of the forensic investigators shed a whole new light on the entire bankruptcy proceedings. They are so bad that it is my duty, as a bankruptcy administrator, to pay attention to them as thoroughly as possible. The report identified the business model as a fraudulent scheme that may have existed for several years before bankruptcy proceedings began. The inspectors’ decisions will play a crucial role in event disputes and police investigations,” replied Pavel Fabian, bankruptcy administrator, to the inspection results for SZ Byznys.

An important figure in the whole story is the previously mentioned owner of JAE and SBJ Trade Břetislav Janoušek, who was the head of the bookselling company Neoluxor. Janoušek was previously listed on the Unicorn website as the business director of Plus4U, which directly controls Mamut.

“Actually, Břetislav Janoušek has never done a similar act at Unicorn,” ALE Unicorn said in one of its previous statements.

Nevertheless, in 2022, Janoušek was even a member of the Unicorn working group called Top Management for a short time. He brought together the main managers of the holding, including its owner Vladimír Kovář.

One of the important conclusions from the published forensic report is that the Mamut online store was completely dependent on Břetislav Janoušek’s companies. The majority of Mamut’s sales came from JAE and SBJ Trade. When Janousek’s companies stopped paying Mamut, the e-shop went bankrupt.

Even before the accident, everything seemed almost ideal. Thanks to Břetislav Janoušek’s companies, Mamut’s business grew by leaps and bounds. While Mamut had a net profit of 7.8 million kroner in 2021, a year later it earned 138.6 million kroner.

“It is highly unlikely that this economic development went unnoticed and that the management of the Unicorn Group is not interested in the reasons for this increase,” reads the published forensic report from Surveilligence.

Unicorn’s owner, Vladimír Kovář, benefited directly from Mamut’s rapidly growing business with JAE and SBJ Trade. If in 2021 he collected 5.5 million crowns for consulting services from Mamut, last year it was already 15.5 million according to the forensic report. In total, Kovář received 25.5 million crowns from Mamut. The accumulated amounts were directly proportional to Mamut’s sales growth.

Experts from Surveilligence expressed their suspicion in a forensic report that the transactions between Mamut and Kovář “may be fraudulent”. In other words, the e-shop did not have to receive any consideration for the money given to Kovář.

“In the past, I have received income from Mammoth, royalties, due to a contract from 2011, which expired long before this case. The contract concerned the provision of consultancy in the field of technical and software solutions for the Mamut.cz online store. I emphasize that if I have received any money from the Mammoth company in the past, they have always received correct amounts on a correct contractual basis,” Kovář said at the end of last year, said he would return part of the money received from Mamot.

Companies from the Kovář tenure also received money from Mamut for various services. In the critical year of 2022, when Mamut’s business grew by leaps and bounds, it was 109 million crowns. In total, according to the forensic report, companies from the concern collected 216 million crowns from Mamut. In this case too, financial machinations experts from Surveilligence expressed their suspicion that they were just fraudulent transactions.

In addition, part of the invoices issued by companies from the Unicorn concern were not booked​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​front. , or even already during the bankruptcy proceedings. In total, it is 119 million crowns. A smaller part of these invoices do not refer to 2023, but to earlier years as well.

“Back able to invoice (post back) and the risk of confiscation of the debtor’s assets, I believe that the investigation is the most serious finding in the forensic report,” said bankruptcy administrator Fabian.

The published study of financial instrument experts has become a new source of controversy between the Unicorn concern on the one hand and the companies T-Mobile and J&T Leasing on the other.

“Its conclusions are conjecture and speculation, and despite the efforts of its creators, it does not confirm any illegal activities by Unicorn group companies. Plus4U believes that this report is a deliberately constructed document prepared in the interest of Mammoth’s main creditors, which aims to link the fraudulent activities of businessman Břetislav Janoušek to him the Unicorn group,” answered Plus4U media representative Aneta Havlová in a statement to the Czech. Press Office. The group has not yet mentioned specific facts from the investigation.

The results of the investigation play in favor of the version of the story that has been in the case since the beginning T-Mobile a J&T They keep the rent. In other words, Vladimír Kovář’s interest in Mamut’s business was deeper than Unicorn and Plus4U admit. So it is not surprising that both T-Mobile and J&T Leasing agreed with the results of the forensic investigation.

J&T Leasing heads the creditor’s committee, which commissioned a forensic analysis. T-Mobile is also a member of the creditors’ committee.

“The forensic report provides very basic findings which are shocking in some ways. According to her, the company Mammoth, whose final owner is Vladimír Kovář, made dangerous and dubious transactions in the order of billions of crowns. These transactions at Mammoth had no security and were carried out by two dubious companies,” spokeswoman for T-Mobile operator Patricie Šedivá told SZ Byznys.

“The forensic report confirmed that the Mamut.cz e-shop was completely managed by people from the management of the Unicorn concern. The fact was also confirmed that the senior management of the Unicorn concern must have information about what was going on at Mammoth, taking into account both the large number of services and invoices within the group , as well as the fact that the leaders of the group. the Unicorn concern also benefited from Mamut’s business.” joined the press representative of the J&T group, Monika Veselá.

However, Unicorn claims from the beginning of the case that the business scheme around Břetislav Janoušek’s companies could not have worked without the knowledge or at least gross negligence on the part of the managers of T-Mobil and J&T Leasing. The former head of J&T Leasing, Vlastimil Nešetril, left the company as a result of the case.

V conversation he previously said for SZ Byznys that this was a statement of his responsibility for the company’s operations, and that no one had any idea about the contracts behind Mamut, as Apple devices were entitled to officially come to an end. in the custody of the Unicorn. He called the case “a scam like a pig”.

The J&T Group even tried to get Mammoth officials involved in the matter put to death. However, the Court of Appeal blocked this attempt.