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Underworld's "last Mohican" behind bars

29 July 2010
Presseurop
Hospodářské noviny
Hospodářské noviny, 29 July 2010

"Pitr arrested" trumpets Hospodářské noviny. On the run for several years, the businessman who is seen as "the living symbol of the ties between the worlds of business, politics and the mafia", was arrested July 26 in Switzerland. Tomáš Pitr, reports the daily, was sentenced by a Czech court to a full 5 years in prison for various tax-related offences, but he never served his sentence and has been in hiding abroad since 2007, using an assumed identity. Very close to "godfather" František Mrázek, who was assassinated in 2006, this "last of the Mohicans", as Hospodářské noviny refers to him, could become an important source of information on numerous politico-financial scandals if he is returned to Czech authorities.