Spain arrests Polish millionaire at centre of eavesdropping scandal

A FUGITIVE multi-millionaire at the heart of an eavesdropping scandal that brought down the government of Donald Tusk, the former Polish prime minister, has been arrested in Spain.

Marek Falenta was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in Poland in 2016 for setting up an listening post at two Warsaw restaurants that allowed waiters to record conversations between businessmen and politicians.

Spanish police claimed they managed to talk Mr Falenta out of committing suicide when they raided his upmarket apartment in the eastern seaside town of Cullera, near Valencia. Spanish police only identified the businessman by his initials, M.A.F, and stated that he came 67th in Wprost – Poland’s list of top 100 fortunes – in 2013.

Joachim Brudziński, Poland’s interior minister, confirmed in a tweet that the man arrested was Falenta, the businessman behind the bugging system which involved recording 700 hours of conversations of senior politicians and financial officials.

The taping scandal rocked the Polish government in 2014 after embarrassing conversations involving the interior minister, finance minister, foreign minister and transport minister from Poland’s pro-European Civic Platform party were published in the media. One extract included Radosław Sikorsk, the then foreign minister, allegedly describing the country’s alliance with the US as “worthless”, and describing David Cameron as “incompetent” and saying the British prime minister had “f---ed up” in Europe. Mr Tusk resigned as Poland’s prime minister in 2014 to become president of the European Council, but the scandal contributed to his ruling Civic Platform party losing elections in 2015 to the conservative Law and Justice party now in power.

Polish authorities issued a European arrest warrant for Falenta after he fled the country. He is due to be questioned in Spain before any extradition process to Poland can proceed, local police said.