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The success story has
been grounded. Václav Fischer, the owner of the largest
travel agency in the
Czech Republic, was all of a sudden broke. His creditors
had gone to court to impound his fleet of planes and anything
else he still had of value. Travel agencies going bust
in this country are nothing new, but this was Fischer,
the man who started his business in Germany after fleeing
the Communists, who came back after the regime fell and
was lauded by the media for being one of the few Czech
entrepreneurs to make his fortune legally. In 1998 the
same media welcomed his election as senator, hoping he
would usher in a new era of respectability in politics.
He bailed out after a few years without improving the situation
in Prague and with his agency in decidedly bad shape. Being
the Czech media, they were quick to turn on him, with several
commentators suggesting his company was now beyond saving.
A fellow entrepreneur eventually came to the rescue, giving
new meaning to Fischer's famous "last minute" sales pitch.
A former colleague of his from the senate, Alexander Novák,
has the opposite problem: Having too much money. His bank
in Austria informed Interpol that Novák had 43 million
crowns stashed away in his account there. He claimed the
money could have come from any number of business adventures
he's involved with abroad. The Czech police suspect it's
a business adventure all right, going back to his term
as the mayor of Chomutov in North Bohemia, when the city
sold its stake in two utilities to a German company for
a damn good price. Austria is also the source of problems
for National Deputy Police Chief Ivana Pánková. She's under
investigation for her role in the selection of an Austrian
company over a Czech one for the delivery of police holsters
that were half as good and twice as expensive. And the
police blotter goes on. The investigation into last year's
heist of a Group 4 Securitas armored car, when the guards
all but invited the robbers to help themselves to the more
than 100,000,000 crowns inside, was wrapped up. The police
are sure they have all the evidence they need to convict
whoever did it. They were not so lucky in the case against
Pavel Minařík, the secret police operative accused of planning
to bomb Radio Free Europe in Munich in the 1970s. The prosecutor's
office has decided not to take the case to trial because
there isn't enough evidence to go on. This after charges
were filed 11 years ago. By comparison the case against
former Minister of Finance Ivo Svoboda and his advisor,
who are accused of plundering a company that made baby
carriages, is moving along rather quickly. It's taken only
four years for it to come to trial. At least Svoboda and
his advisor still have each other. Not the case with Frantiąek
Beránek, the director of a large insurance company, and
Katerina Kaltsogianni, the owner of a small-time travel
agency. Beránek signed a contract for his insurance company
to pay Kaltsogianni's travel agency to take ill children
to the sea for recuperation. The two were living together
at the time, meaning they were running a nice little family
operation out of their bedroom. But the relationship eventually
soured and now Kaltsogianni has filed attempted murder
charges against Beránek, months after the incident supposedly
occurred. He insists it's just a promotion for a book she
published detailing their turbulent domestic life. As for
all that business they were doing together, Kaltsogianni
would only say she's a private entrepreneur. Any conflict
of interest was his problem. If it sounds like a made-for-TV
movie, then chances are most people here have already seen
it and everything else on. A recent report finds the time
spent watching television has dropped by a third since
the beginning of the year. Apparently not everybody who
saw that New Year's Eve special cared to watch it again
when it was rerun during the summer. The networks have
promised to give their programming a facelift and nowhere
is it needed more than on TV Nova's Peříčko talk show.
Among the guests making appearances these days is Josef
Lux, a former political boss who died several years ago.
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