Status of the case as of 17 October 2026. This page is updated as the proceedings develop.
Zonda, Zondacrypto and BitBay are successive names of the same platform, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Poland, with customers in several European countries. In April 2026 its customers could no longer withdraw their funds. The exchange spoke of a “temporary technical problem”, though the real answer had been sitting for months in the Estonian business register, in the financial statements of the operator, BB Trade Estonia OÜ. Read today, they show that the trouble covering liabilities to customers began years before the freeze: for the financial years 2021 to 2023 no auditor was able to confirm that the company controlled its customers’ assets.
On 27 August 2026 a court in Tallinn declared the operator bankrupt, and the Polish National Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice is running a merged investigation into the exchange and the disappearance of its founder. This page gathers in one place what we know about the Zondacrypto case and what an affected customer can do: the current status, the deadlines, answers to the most common questions, every analysis published by Kancelaria Prawna Skarbiec (Skarbiec Law Firm), and an overview of the press coverage in which we comment on the case.
Tell us about your case
If you are waiting for a withdrawal from Zondacrypto, contact us through the form below. The scope of our help is described further down this page and in Zondacrypto’s Withdrawal Crisis.
Zondacrypto: the carpet is always big enough. Only what has been published does not fit underneath
This page brings together everything I have written about the Zondacrypto case: about the company, its money, its contracts, and the people who signed them. None of the information in these publications comes from the criminal investigation. I write about contracts the company itself concluded, books it itself kept, statements from its own bank accounts, and court records that are public. The secrecy of an investigation protects what prosecutors have established, not what the CEO signed. Is it worth publishing? I have handled the WGI case for twenty years and I do not regret a single piece of information I have made public in that time. I regret the ones I did not, because everything left unpublished was swept under the carpet. In cases of this kind the carpet is always big enough. The only thing that will not fit underneath it is what has already been published.
Zonda: The Cold Wallet as an Alibi. The Blockchain Shows BitBay’s Real Wallets
Money „from Suszek” Arrived Fifteen Months After He Vanished. The Exchange’s Contracts, Revealed
Zonda: status of the case, September 2026
- On 27 August 2026 the Harju County Court in Tallinn declared BB Trade Estonia OÜ, the operator of the Zondacrypto exchange, bankrupt (civil case no. 2-26-14436/10). Margus Lentsius, the company’s interim supervisor since 27 July, was appointed trustee. Earlier, the Estonian supervisor partially suspended the exchange’s licence (FVT000209) on 18 May and revoked it in full on 29 June.
- Deadline for creditors. Claims must be filed with the trustee within two months of the bankruptcy notice in the Estonian official gazette, Ametlikud Teadaanded; according to the trustee’s notice the deadline is 27 October 2026. A late claim, even if accepted, goes to the back of the queue.
- Creditors’ meeting. The first meeting of creditors takes place in Tallinn on 17 September 2026 at 11.00. It is to confirm the trustee and elect the creditors’ committee. Personal attendance by an individual customer is not necessary.
- Criminal investigation. It is conducted by the Silesian Branch of the Department for Organised Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice under file no. 1001-109.Ds.77.2022. On 30 July 2026 the exchange case was merged with the investigation into the disappearance of Sylwester Suszek, the founder of BitBay. The current deadline for completing the investigation is 17 January 2027, most likely to be extended.
- Asset freezes. On 27 August 2026 the Polish Minister of Justice said that prosecutors had secured more than PLN 100 million towards future compensation; earlier, EUR 4 million had been frozen on a bank account in France. In April prosecutors estimated customer losses at no less than PLN 350 million, and reports from injured parties run into the thousands.
- Between 27 August and 5 September 2026 five people were detained, among them Radosław P., president of the Polish Olympic Committee (charges under Articles 230 § 1 and 302 § 1 of the Polish Criminal Code), and Rafał Z., accused of misappropriating PLN 1.7 million entrusted to him by the exchange operator. Charges are not findings and detention is not a verdict; each of these persons is presumed innocent.
- The chief executive. On 25 August 2026 attorney Roman Giertych announced that he had been defending Przemysław Kral since May and that his client had placed a “vast fortune” at the disposal of prosecutors. Reports that Kral would be given the status of a cooperating witness have not been confirmed by the prosecution.
- Supervision in Poland. On 4 September 2026 the Polish parliament failed to override the President’s third veto of the Crypto-Assets Market Act, so Poland still has no supervisory authority for this market. The Polish consumer protection authority (UOKiK) has been running an inquiry into BB Trade Estonia OÜ since 31 January 2025.
- The wallet holding 4,500 BTC that the chief executive pointed to in April has never been linked to the company by any cryptographic proof. On 22 August 2026, for the first time since April, an XRP wallet linked to the exchange and holding 1.1 million units came to life: 21,000 XRP were moved out while the Estonian ban on disposing of assets was already in force.
A detailed timeline of the case, from the first blocked withdrawals to the September arrests, is kept in Zondacrypto: The Vanishing, the September update of our first analysis.
Legal help for Zondacrypto customers
Kancelaria Prawna Skarbiec represents Zondacrypto customers in the criminal proceedings and is preparing their proofs of claim for the Estonian trustee. We run both tracks at once because they are two different procedures dealing, to a large extent, with the same money. Whatever is left of the exchange (cryptocurrency in wallets, funds on accounts, receivables from related entities, proceeds moved to third parties) may end up in the bankruptcy estate divided by the Estonian trustee, or be secured by the prosecutors towards forfeiture and compensation. In practice we expect the prosecution to take precedence: criminal freezes and forfeiture usually come before civil claims to the same assets, and the Polish investigation currently has the widest set of tools in this case. That is not, however, a rule on which a whole strategy can rest. Who ends up with a given asset will depend on how actively the prosecutors and the trustee pursue it, on the order of their steps, and on the law of the country where the asset sits: one set of rules in Poland, another in Estonia, another in France, where EUR 4 million has been frozen, and another in every further jurisdiction the money flowed to. That is why a victim has to be present in both proceedings: a proof of claim does not replace injured-party status, and injured-party status does not replace a proof of claim. The asset freezes in the investigation operate for the benefit of all injured parties regardless of when they joined; a share in the bankruptcy estate belongs only to those who filed their claim on time.
The scope of our work and the way we work are described in Zondacrypto’s Withdrawal Crisis; we correspond in English. Since 2006 we have also been prosecuting the WGI case, one of the longest criminal cases in the history of the Polish financial market, and the way we run the Zonda case follows from that experience.
What to do, and what not to do: the short guide
The order below reflects what in this case carries a deadline, what carries evidentiary weight, and what can be done later without loss.
- Secure your documents. Bank transfer confirmations to and from the exchange’s accounts, confirmations of crypto deposits with transaction identifiers (TXIDs), exports of your operation history, screenshots of balances and withdrawal orders from the period of the freeze, e-mails from support and from the AML department, complaints. The exchange’s panel is offline, so the balance has to be proved outside its books.
- Obtain the status of injured party. The complaint goes to the National Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice (ul. Wita Stwosza 31, 40-042 Katowice, Poland) with reference to file no. 1001-109.Ds.77.2022, together with a motion to be recognised as an injured party and a motion under Article 46 § 1 of the Criminal Code. Only a documented injured party will be counted in the judgment.
- File your claim with the trustee by 27 October 2026. In euro at the value on 27 August 2026, with a list of assets and an election between satisfaction in kind and in money. The EU standard form under Article 55 of Regulation 2015/848 may be used; the trustee accepts Estonian and English, and may request a translation of other languages. For a small claim, filing on your own is free and feasible.
- Put your taxes in order. For Polish tax residents, a balance you cannot withdraw is not income under the Polish personal income tax act. If you paid tax on gains that stayed on the exchange, you can file an amended return and claim a refund. Check earlier years as well: when questioning injured parties, prosecutors ask where the deposited funds came from and whether past gains were declared, and the exchange’s complete transaction records are already in the investigation file. Anyone with arrears in this respect should settle them before the tax office asks. Customers from other countries should check the treatment under their own law.
What not to do:
- Do not pay anyone to “recover your funds”. Firms that approach you and ask for an advance fee have no tools that a prosecutor or a trustee would lack. Money paid to them is lost a second time.
- Do not believe guarantees. Nobody knows today how much will be recovered or when; anyone promising a specific amount or date is not telling the truth.
- Do not sue the bankrupt company and do not pay for a “class action” against it. After the bankruptcy order, claims against the company are filed with the trustee; a court will reject the lawsuit and you will be left with the costs.
- Do not give anyone your login data, wallet keys or a general power of attorney. A power of attorney limited to the specific case is all that is needed to file a claim and take part in the investigation; access to your accounts is not.
- Do not count on compensation from the state. The exchange was supervised by Estonia, not Poland, and the Polish State Treasury is not liable for the consequences of that supervision.
- Do not make decisions on the strength of reports about where the chief executive is or who has been detained. That news changes neither the deadlines nor what you have to do.
The full guide, with the reasoning behind each step, is in Zondacrypto: The Vanishing.
Frequently asked questions about the Zondacrypto case
Has Zondacrypto gone bankrupt?
Yes. On 27 August 2026 the Harju County Court in Tallinn found BB Trade Estonia OÜ, the Estonian operator of the exchange, insolvent and appointed a trustee. The order is recognised automatically throughout the European Union; from that day, claims against the company are filed with the trustee, not with the exchange.
I have filed a complaint with the Polish prosecutors. Do I also have to file a claim in Estonia?
These are two separate proceedings, conducted under different laws and against different parties, and neither replaces the other. The status of injured party (Article 49 § 1 of the Polish Code of Criminal Procedure) gives you the rights of a party in the investigation, including access to the file and the right to submit evidence motions, and, once the indictment is filed, the right to act as an auxiliary prosecutor and to move for a compensation order (Article 46 § 1 of the Criminal Code). The asset freezes imposed by the prosecutor on the property of the suspects, and, as regards forfeiture of proceeds, of third parties (Article 291 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), serve to enforce such an order and operate for the benefit of all injured parties, regardless of when they joined the case. Filing a claim with the trustee (§ 93 of the Estonian Bankruptcy Act) gives you the status of a creditor of BB Trade Estonia OÜ and a share in the distribution of the estate, which consists of the property of the company itself; the distribution will cover those assets that the Polish prosecutors have not effectively frozen, because no link to the offence has been shown or because they sit in a country where the Polish freezing order has not been executed. In our assessment the criminal route is the more favourable one for the victims: the costs of the proceedings are borne by the State, the motion under Article 46 requires no fee and no separate lawsuit, and the freezes reach the assets of the perpetrators, not only of the company. The filing in Estonia is an additional safeguard: it protects your share in whatever remains in the estate, and it has a hard deadline, 27 October 2026.
How much will I recover, and when?
The honest answer is that nobody knows, and anyone who says otherwise is selling dreams. Time in such cases is measured in years: Mt. Gox distributed bitcoins ten years after its collapse, FTX paid out three years after its filing. Recovery rates in crypto exchange bankruptcies range from a low double-digit percentage to payment in full. Our April estimate of the horizon of the Zonda case, five to ten years, stands. How losses are calculated is explained in What Is a Claim Worth When No One Has Counted It?
Can I sue the bankrupt exchange or the Polish State?
A civil lawsuit against the bankrupt company speeds nothing up and generates costs. An action brought after the bankruptcy order will be rejected as inadmissible for the time being: a claim that has to be filed in the bankruptcy is pursued in the insolvency proceedings, not in litigation, and that effect is governed by Estonian law as the law of the State where the proceedings were opened (Article 7(2)(f) of Regulation (EU) 2015/848). An action already pending is suspended by the court of its own motion with effect from the date of the bankruptcy order (in Poland, Article 174 § 1(4) and § 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure; Article 18 of Regulation (EU) 2015/848 refers the effects on a pending lawsuit to the law of the country where it is pending). As a rule, a suspended action can be resumed against the trustee only if the claim, after the filing procedure has been exhausted, is not admitted to the list of claims.
Claims against third parties, board members or recipients of transfers, will mature with the findings of the investigation and will be assessed individually. The Polish State Treasury is not liable for the quality of supervision exercised in Tallinn, and Polish regulators had no jurisdiction over an Estonian exchange; we explain this in a Polish-language analysis, Skarb Państwa nie odpowie za Zondę.
Do I owe tax on a balance I cannot withdraw?
For Polish tax residents, in our assessment, no. The Polish personal income tax act ties income to the disposal of virtual currency for consideration, not to a book entry kept by a counterparty that does not honour it. Anyone who reported and taxed gains they never managed to withdraw has grounds to amend the return and claim a refund. Details in The Digital Mirror. Residents of other countries should check their own rules.
Who is conducting the investigation?
The Silesian Branch of the Department for Organised Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice, file no. 1001-109.Ds.77.2022. The year 2022 in the file number is not a mistake: it is the number of the case into the disappearance of Sylwester Suszek, to which the exchange case was joined on 30 July 2026. Customers who obtained injured-party status before the merger need do nothing new except watch the new correspondence address.
I withdrew funds a few weeks before the freeze. Am I at risk?
The trustee may challenge pre-bankruptcy withdrawals as preferential satisfaction of some creditors at the expense of others. For customers who simply withdrew their own balances, the risk is concentrated in the months immediately before the freeze and is not automatic. Our advice: orderly documentation of your own transactions, no offensive steps on spec, and no replies to demands without consultation.
Is the victims’ association a class action?
No. The association is an organised voice in the criminal proceedings (Article 90 of the Polish Code of Criminal Procedure) and a place to exchange information; it does not replace an individual criminal complaint or an individual proof of claim.
How do I recognise a recovery scam?
The contact comes from the “recovery firm”, not from you; an advance fee, a “processing charge” or a “tax on the refund” appears; the offer ends with a guarantee. Victims’ data leaks and is traded, so the scammer knows surprisingly much about your case. We warned against this mechanism on Polish Radio on 21 April 2026 and we keep warning.
How the Zondacrypto collapse happened: BitBay, Malta, Estonia
The exchange operated from 2014 under the BitBay brand and in 2018 landed on the public warning list of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority. Rather than submit to Polish supervision, it announced a move to Malta, where its Maltese company, Pinewood Holdings Limited, never applied for a crypto exchange licence. When the Maltese transitional period ended on 31 October 2019, operations were moved to BB Trade Estonia OÜ, which held an Estonian licence for virtual currency service providers from 5 October 2020. The Polish company BitBay sp. z o.o. stopped filing financial statements and in February 2026 was struck from the register without liquidation, with a note that it had no assets. Three jurisdictions, one pattern: the exchange vanished from wherever supervision appeared. We described this in A Company That Existed Only on Paper and, in Polish, in BitBay. Jak spółka zniknęła na oczach wszystkich.
On 10 March 2022 the exchange’s founder, Sylwester Suszek, disappeared in unexplained circumstances. From then on the exchange was controlled by Przemysław Kral, who had appeared at BitBay in 2019 as Suszek’s attorney-in-fact. For the next four years Zonda kept taking deposits, advertised in stadiums and sponsored the Polish Olympic Committee, Juventus and clubs in Monaco. Most of today’s criminal complaints concern deposits made after March 2022.
All that time the financial statements of BB Trade Estonia OÜ sat in the Estonian register, available to anyone. They said more than the exchange’s terms of service, and something different. The terms assured customers that the operator neither invested nor lent their funds. The statements admitted that the company “had used the possibility of using funds held in customer accounts”, and for 2024 they showed a loan of EUR 75 million granted out of customers’ cryptocurrencies, unsecured. For three consecutive years the auditors were unable to confirm that the company controlled its customers’ assets at all: for 2021 they disclaimed an opinion, for 2022 and 2023 they qualified it. At the end of 2024 liabilities to customers stood at EUR 722 million, with EUR 9.7 million in cash. In the course of 2025 alone those liabilities melted to EUR 343 million: customers were pulling their money out, and the exchange paid those who made it in time. We called it a bank run conducted through an API.
The analysis of the statements that opened the media chapter of the case is Zondacrypto: The Exchange That Lent Your Money.
At the turn of March and April 2026 the exchange’s operational bitcoin reserves fell to almost nothing, and customers reported cancelled withdrawal orders and demands for repeated AML verification on a mass scale. On 7 April the chief executive promised to restore withdrawals by 12 April; the date passed without effect. On 17 April the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice opened an investigation, on 22 April the chief executive published a statement dated in Monaco, and within days the exchange’s website stopped working. Four months and twenty days passed between the first public freeze of withdrawals and the court’s finding of insolvency. The signal was visible, as it always is in the history of failed financial institutions, and it was ignored, as it always is.
Analyses by Kancelaria Prawna Skarbiec on the Zonda case
We have been publishing our own analyses of the case since 9 April 2026: legal, financial and on-chain. The first text is preserved in its original form in the Wayback Machine, because in this case it matters who knew what, and when. All publications are listed below by subject. Where only a Polish version exists, this is marked.
For customers: what to do and what to expect
- 6 September 2026 (update of the analysis of 9 April 2026): Zondacrypto: The Vanishing
- 27 August 2026: The Zondacrypto Bankruptcy Is Declared: One Deadline Now Governs
- 2 September 2026: What Is a Claim Worth When No One Has Counted It?
- 11 August 2026: How Zondacrypto’s Victims Became Suspects
- 29 April 2026: The Digital Mirror (is frozen crypto taxable income?)
- 22 April 2026, in Polish: Skarb Państwa nie odpowie za Zondę (why the Polish State is not liable)
- 11 April 2026: Zondacrypto’s Withdrawal Crisis (your options, and what the history of failed exchanges teaches)
- 10 April 2026: The Email That Said Too Much (what the exchange’s own support messages revealed)
Bankruptcy, assets and customers’ money
- 4 September 2026: The Zonda Wallet That Woke Up
- 26 August 2026: Zondacrypto: Kral’s Defense Promises a “Vast Fortune.” We Took Inventory
- 29 July 2026: The Zondacrypto Insolvency in Estonia: Recognition Without Recovery
- 20 July 2026: Zondacrypto: How Customers Lost Their Money. New Findings
- 25 April 2026: A Wallet, a Decade, a Question
- 22 April 2026: Swiss Investment of Zonda
- 19 April 2026: The Exchange That Promised to Keep Your Coins Safe. A Post-Mortem
- 18 April 2026: ZND Token: Fresh Air in a Can
- 16 April 2026: Zondacrypto: The Ghost Wallet
- 13 April 2026: Zondacrypto: The Exchange That Lent Your Money
The investigation and the people in the case
- 2 September 2026: The Debtor Who Wasn’t on the Books
- 29 August 2026: Money from Nothing: An Olympic Arrest and the Mechanics of zondacrypto’s ZND Token
- 5 August 2026: Zondacrypto Probe Merged With the Suszek Disappearance Case After Four Years
- 27 July 2026: Will Zondacrypto’s Przemysław Kral turn crown witness?
- 25 May 2026: Why Was a Polish Crypto C.E.O. Collecting Offers for Mortars, Submarines, and Gold?
- 24 April 2026: The Shelter That Isn’t (extradition from Israel)
- 21 April 2026: Sylwester Suszek: The Exit, in Five Acts
The structure of the exchange and its surroundings
- 2 May 2026: The Same Trick Twice (how Zonda bought silence and influence)
- 30 April 2026: A Company That Existed Only on Paper (the Maltese chapter)
- 28 April 2026: What Madoff’s Bankers Could Teach the Customers of a Polish Crypto Exchange
- 27 April 2026, in Polish: Jak spółka zniknęła na oczach wszystkich (how the Polish company vanished in plain sight)
The Zonda case in the world, and the regulatory context
- 24 August 2026: Zondacrypto Goes Global: From the New York Times to the KuCoin Feed
- 23 August 2026: An Office Above a Kitchenware Shop: The New York Times on the Zondacrypto Collapse
- 12 June 2026: Regulation Without Recourse: Poland’s Third Crypto-Assets Veto and the Anatomy of a Self-Inflicted Regulatory Vacuum
- In Polish: Weto prezydenta wobec ustawy o rynku kryptoaktywów: odpowiedzialna ochrona czy niebezpieczny populizm?
Webinar: what can Zondacrypto’s customers do? (recording of 26 April 2026, in Polish)
A free recording of the webinar held on 26 April 2026, two weeks after withdrawals were frozen: Zondacrypto: what can affected customers do? Robert Nogacki, attorney at law, walks through which steps carry real legal weight, why time matters in this case, and which myths were circulating in the media at the time, from the 4,500 BTC wallet to the “keys held by Suszek”. The recording is in Polish.
It was recorded before the bankruptcy order, so three points should be read with today’s correction:
- the date that now organises customers’ actions is 27 October 2026 (the deadline for filing claims with the trustee), not the 1 July 2026 discussed in the recording, which was the end of the Estonian transitional period for VASP licences;
- a civil lawsuit with an application for interim security, discussed in the recording as a standard instrument, lost its purpose against the company once bankruptcy was declared; claims against the company go to the trustee;
- everything in the recording about documents, injured-party status, caution towards “recovery” offers and selling at the exchange’s internal rate remains valid.
The recording is not a presentation of the firm’s services; it is a conversation about the realities of the case.
Zonda in the media: commentary by Robert Nogacki
The analysis of the Estonian financial statements of BB Trade Estonia OÜ, published by the firm in April 2026, became the basis of coverage in Poland’s largest newsrooms: Gazeta Wyborcza, Business Insider Polska, Bankier.pl and Rzeczpospolita, Fakt, Onet and money.pl, TVN24, public television TVP and Polish Radio; in August The New York Times took up the case. Below is an overview of the coverage in which Robert Nogacki comments on the Zondacrypto case, grouped by outlet. Unless marked otherwise, the sources are in Polish; the links lead to archived copies (PDF) or to recordings. Titles are given in English translation.
Gazeta Wyborcza and wyborcza.biz
Author of the series: Ireneusz Sudak.
14 April 2026: A lawyer exposes Zondacrypto. The exchange traded with customers’ money, against its own terms. The first press article based on the analysis of the exchange’s Estonian financial statements.
“This is not an unfair contract term. This is not a vague privacy policy. This is a documented contradiction between the terms of service and an official financial statement filed in a register under threat of criminal liability in Estonia.”
16 April 2026: Zondacrypto generates as much cash as a kebab chain. “They want a Michelin star, though the waiters have not even brought the plates”. On the fall of the exchange’s revenue from EUR 23.8 million in 2021 to the level of a mid-sized manufacturer, and on what the sentence “we need more time for your withdrawal” really means.
“This is not a technical delay. This is credit risk.”
16 April 2026, print edition no. 88 (11187): The exchange traded with customers’ money, from the series “Zondacrypto’s troubles”.
17 April 2026: Five steps to recovering your money. UOKiK has been looking at Zondacrypto since January. A five-step plan for customers: securing evidence, a formal complaint to the exchange, a report to the consumer authority, a complaint to the Estonian supervisor and a criminal complaint.
20 April 2026: Estonian authority: most Zondacrypto customers may not be ours. Ziobro’s lawyer writes to “Wyborcza”. On the 4,500 BTC wallet, one of the most famous publicly known dormant bitcoin addresses in the world.
22 April 2026: Zondacrypto’s corpse haunts the Bahamas? Where did PLN 76 million go? On the owner’s Bahamian company and why every week of delay means a risk of further transfers beyond the reach of enforcement.
22 April 2026: Vultures hunt Zondacrypto’s customers. The “recovery scam” squeezes victims. A warning against secondary fraud.
“No private firm has tools that a court or a prosecutor would lack.”
24 April 2026, print edition no. 95 (11194): Where did 76 million go?
7 May 2026: Prosecutors let Zondacrypto operate. Can officials be held accountable? On liability for earlier discontinued proceedings against the exchange, and why the most honest answer for a victim is: the criminal case first, then we shall see.
21 May 2026 (print edition 22 May 2026): A Cambodian laundry on Bartycka Street. Criminals laundered stolen cryptocurrencies and A Cambodian laundry on Bartycka Street. On the Polish VASP register, in which, among others, a company from the Huione group sanctioned by the US Treasury had nested.
“The Polish register of virtual currency service providers (VASP) has become, de facto, an instrument for lending an appearance of legality to criminal organisations operating on a global scale.”
1 June 2026 (print edition 2 June 2026): Degenerates of the financial market. They lose millions pretending to invest. Will the regulator notice? and They lose millions pretending to invest. On the construction of CFDs and why a trading platform’s customer is often on a losing position from the start.
Fakt
14 April 2026, Mikołaj Szewczyk: EUR 75 million of customers’ crypto “evaporated”? A lawyer takes Zondacrypto apart
“The exchange lent its customers’ money. Seventy-five million euro. Unsecured. With a repayment date that has already passed.”
16 April 2026, Renata Cius-Rassek (Onet and Fakt): “The money simply vanished.” The Zondacrypto investigation gathers pace. On two documents of the same company: terms of service that say “we do not invest” and financial statements that say “we invested”.
“These are public documents, digitally signed by board members and examined by a statutory auditor. In practice none of the customers read them, because they are in Estonian.”
23 April 2026, Renata Cius-Rassek: The riddle of the Zondacrypto chief’s disappearance. New leads. “He prepared a contingency plan for himself”. On the chief executive’s new companies in the Bahamas, his Monaco residence and the question of who really owned the exchange.
24 April 2026, Renata Cius-Rassek: A lawyer tracks Zondacrypto and wants to pay rewards for information. On the “Zondacrypto Wypłaty” group and the beginnings of the victims’ association.
24 April 2026, Mikołaj Szewczyk: Extradition of Kral from Israel is possible. A lawyer points to the Zonda chief’s key weakness. Step by step through the extradition procedure and the myth that Israel does not extradite its citizens.
28 April 2026, Mikołaj Szewczyk: Zonda’s cold wallet may come from the Russian black market. An expert has a hypothesis. An on-chain analysis of the 4,500 BTC wallet, with no trace linking it to BitBay or to Poland.
26 May 2026, Mikołaj Szewczyk: Gold, weapons and submarines. The double life of Sylwester Suszek. On the founder’s correspondence revealed by TVN24, and why securing it is a standard step in the first days of an investigation.
12 June 2026, Renata Cius-Rassek (Onet and Fakt): Monaco, luxury and big money. Behind the Zondacrypto case, now examined by three prosecution services in Europe. On reputation laundering: sponsoring Monaco clubs bought credibility, and credibility brought in more Polish customers.
“Przemysław Kral did not steal a cent from Monaco’s elite. He stole something more valuable: its face.”
15 June 2026, Renata Cius-Rassek, print edition: Kral wormed his way into the favour of the Prince of Monaco
Onet and Forbes
5 May 2026, Wojciech Kość: POLITICO on the Zondacrypto affair: the exchange scandal fuels the dispute between Tusk and Nawrocki. Commentary for POLITICO on the scale of individual losses, from a few thousand zloty to seven-figure sums.
8 May 2026, Natalia Chudzyńska-Stępień (Forbes): “Zonda is in a trap.” A hidden wallet found. Did Sylwester Suszek flee to Russia? An interview about the located XRP wallet holding 1.1 million units, and about how one reads a public blockchain ledger.
8 May 2026, Anna Kruczyńska: They lost almost PLN 650,000 on Zondacrypto. “I read that it is my own fault”. On the announced victims’ association and on the rule that does not apply in this case.
“In the Zondacrypto case there is no rule of first come, first served. An asset freeze, if ordered, operates for the benefit of all injured parties in the case, regardless of when they joined.”
13 May 2026: Zonda in a nutshell. In the shadow of the vanished crypto king
28 May 2026, Natalia Chudzyńska-Stępień (Forbes): How not to fall victim to a financial pyramid. On the point of having a state supervisory apparatus, and on the Maltese company with EUR 1,200 of assets on which an exchange turning over billions once stood.
“If a consumer were expected to verify for himself whether a crypto exchange’s assets are backed, one might as well expect a passenger to inspect the aircraft engine before take-off.”
Rzeczpospolita
30 April 2026, Izabela Kacprzak: How the Zondacrypto chief disappeared. The services do not know where he is now. On the motives for the move to Monaco, the closure of the chief executive’s Polish law practice, and the question of who owned the exchange economically rather than merely on paper.
22 May 2026, Izabela Kacprzak: Robert Nogacki: “The Polish Zondacrypto customer is a man from nowhere.” Investors’ funds are in four countries. An interview: why the Polish State Treasury is not liable for supervision exercised in Tallinn, and why the chances of recovery depend on the speed of the Polish prosecutors.
Business Insider Polska
17 April 2026, Jolanta Ojczyk: Zondacrypto: a colossus with feet of clay. Seven facts that foretold the catastrophe for years. On fraud under Article 286 § 1 of the Criminal Code: the question is not what the exchange did with the money later, but what it told customers when it took it.
“The terms promised: we do not lend. The financial statement admits: we lent.”
25 April 2026, Filip Waluszko: New facts in the Zondacrypto case. Almost PLN 400 million vanished in a year. On a bank run in the classic sense, and on a ZND token with no backing in assets.
28 April 2026, Monika Ktowska: Zondacrypto: anatomy of a collapse. What happened to the money and where to keep crypto now?
money.pl
15 April 2026, Karolina Wysota, Szymon Jadczak: A strange transfer to Zondacrypto. Money from nowhere, and not for the customers. The first recommendations for customers: a written demand for the return of funds and a report to law enforcement.
18 April 2026, Piotr Kuczyński (opinion): Zondacrypto without access to big money. Poles lost out on “trading in wind”
25 April 2026, Karolina Wysota: EUR 379 million evaporated from Zonda in a year. New findings. An expert speaks of a “run”. On selective repayment of creditors, which may be reversed in bankruptcy proceedings.
Television: TVN, TVN24 and TVP
16 April 2026, Fakty TVN, Artur Molenda: Zondacrypto: a supervisory gap paid for by customers. Polish banks are watched by the financial regulator; nobody was watching crypto exchanges.
17 April 2026, tvn24.pl, Michał Fuja: The Zondacrypto affair. Where is the key? The firm’s analysis of the dormant 4,500 BTC wallet as the reference point of the “Superwizjer” investigative report.
18 April 2026, TVP1 main news, Jakub Korus: Zondacrypto: how many victims are there really? On the number of victims contacting the firm, which grew from dozens to a level hard to count.
20 April 2026, Fakty TVN, Michał Tracz: The Zondacrypto affair: how long will the victims’ case take? Realistically five to ten years.
21 April 2026, tvn24.pl, Paulina Karpińska: Chaos at Zondacrypto. How to get your money back? Stay calm, place a formal withdrawal order, obtain injured-party status.
22 April 2026, TVN24 news channel: The Zondacrypto affair. What can victims do if a bankruptcy petition is filed? The conversation in which we set out the rules we have repeated ever since: calm, documents, injured-party status, no lawsuits on spec.
Radio: Polish Radio 24, Polish Radio One and TOK FM
17 April 2026, polskieradio24.pl, Michał Tomaszkiewicz: Zondacrypto’s 4,500 bitcoins. Five things you need to know
21 April 2026, Polish Radio 24 news: Zondacrypto: beware of false help in recovering your money. The first warning against secondary fraud.
23 April 2026, Polish Radio One, “Polska i Świat”: What should the victims do. On res judicata, on the single shot in civil litigation, and on the evidence to secure before filing a complaint.
23 April 2026, tokfm.pl, Jacek Stawiany: How to recover funds from Zondacrypto? “There are no easy solutions” A conversation on “TOK 360” about the status of injured party and the status of creditor in the bankruptcy estate.
30 April 2026, polskieradio24.pl: The mysterious disappearance of the Zondacrypto chief. “Removing his anchor from Poland”?
5 May 2026, reportaz.polskieradio.pl, Antoni Rokicki: “An Evening with a Report”: “Crypto Labyrinth”. A radio documentary about the victims and the work on setting up the association.
Comparic (YouTube)
Two conversations with Robert Nogacki on the Zondacrypto case for the Comparic financial channel, in Polish: first recording and second recording.
OKO.press
17 April 2026, Agata Kołodziej: Zondacrypto is not your brother-in-law’s Passat. What MPs must know before the key vote Written for members of parliament voting on the veto of the Crypto-Assets Market Act, based on the firm’s analyses.
18 May 2026, Agata Kołodziej (Onet and OKO.press): Zondacrypto ran wild in Estonia. Nobody was watching. On three years of auditors’ reservations and the micro-transfer that would have sufficed as proof of holding the coins.
20 May 2026, Agata Kołodziej: Revealed: 25 investigations into Zondacrypto, and nothing. The state did not distinguish itself. On the negative equity of BitBay sp. z o.o. in its 2015 and 2016 statements.
Puls Biznesu
24 May 2026, Kamil Kosiński: Zen.com: we are not guilty of Zondacrypto’s sins. “We were not the exchange’s operator”. On the duties of compliance officers at institutions that saw the flows and knew the balance.
Financial and industry portals
14 April 2026, cashless.pl, Gabriel Uryniuk: New reports on Zondacrypto. The exchange probably lent someone EUR 75 million belonging to customers
14 and 15 April 2026, cryps.pl, Filip Dzięciołowski, Karolina Zawodnik: Zondacrypto under fire over new allegations. It is about customers’ money and Zondacrypto employees in danger? The chief executive posts a strong statement
15 April 2026, bankier.pl, Michał Misiura: Worrying data in Zondacrypto’s financial statements. Did the exchange use customers’ funds?
16 April 2026, cashless.pl, Gabriel Uryniuk: UOKiK: Zondacrypto’s terms once allowed investing customers’ funds. The consumer authority confirmed that a clause allowing the investment of customers’ funds sat in the terms until 30 December 2024.
16 April 2026, bithub.pl, Adam Kubaty: A shocking twist in the zondacrypto case. The 4,500 BTC wallet does exist, but customers are unlikely to see that money
21 April 2026, biznesenter.pl, Damian Szymański: I checked ZondaCrypto’s financial statement. One detail should particularly worry customers and the Polish services
23 April 2026, bithub.pl, Adam Kubaty: Did zondacrypto CEO Przemysław Kral want to flee to the Bahamas? “They knew they would not get a licence in Europe; he had a contingency plan”
25 April 2026, bithub.pl, Adam Kubaty: We know where the zondacrypto chief is staying; he has a villa there. Lawyer: “extradition is possible”
26 April 2026, bithub.pl, Adam Kubaty: New information in the zondacrypto case. A lawyer traced the origin of the 4,500 BTC and drew his own conclusions. A discussion of our on-chain analysis of the dormant wallet, with an appeal to Chainalysis, Elliptic and TRM Labs to verify the connections.
30 April 2026, wnp.pl: Are crypto holders behind on their taxes? This matter concerns more than Zondacrypto. On the concept of funds “placed at the taxpayer’s disposal”.
4 May 2026, bithub.pl, Adam Kubaty: New facts in the zondacrypto affair. BitBay’s Maltese trail, or the company that never was and the teleportation spell. A discussion of our analysis of the Malta Business Registry file (C 86244).
14 May 2026, xyz.pl, Katarzyna Witwicka-Jurek: Income tax on funds you cannot withdraw? Zondacrypto and the tax trap
Other publications
20 April 2026, Najwyższy Czas, Tomasz Sommer: What happened to Zondacrypto?
22 April 2026, fronda.pl: A mysterious transfer from Zondacrypto. Millions of zloty and a trail to the Bahamas
22 April 2026, dorzeczy.pl, Damian Cygan: Zondacrypto had a company in the Bahamas. Is that where the customers’ money is?
23 April 2026, next.gazeta.pl, Dominik Moliński, PAP: The Zondacrypto affair. Estonia makes its move. Licences will be harder to get. The claim that a 4,500 BTC wallet belongs to the exchange is, in our assessment, speculation with no basis in fact.
28 April 2026, Interia, Artur Gac: The vice-president of the Polish Olympic Committee on the committee’s dealings with Zondacrypto: “a dramatic event and an idiotic situation”. The vice-president admitted that the committee could have commissioned the kind of assessment the firm published just before the exchange collapsed.
16 May 2026, Bezprawnik, Marcin Szermański: “Poland will have no say.” Sebastian M. already knows when he will walk free. On the examples of extraditions of Israeli citizens described on our website.
International media
August 2026, The New York Times: a report on the Zondacrypto case with commentary by Robert Nogacki; our discussion of it: An Office Above a Kitchenware Shop: The New York Times on the Zondacrypto Collapse. How the case travelled across the world’s news feeds: Zondacrypto Goes Global: From the New York Times to the KuCoin Feed.
5 May 2026, POLITICO: commentary on the scale of customer losses, discussed above via Onet.
The Association of Injured Customers of Zondacrypto
The Association of Injured Customers of Zondacrypto (Stowarzyszenie Poszkodowanych Klientów Zondacrypto, in formation; the application for entry in the Polish National Court Register is pending) brings together people who lost funds through irregularities on the financial services and crypto trading market. It rests on a simple premise: a scattered voice tends to be ignored, an organised voice has a force that state authorities cannot dismiss. Its purpose is precise: once an indictment is filed, the association will join the court proceedings under Article 90 of the Polish Code of Criminal Procedure, complementing the work of the prosecution with the voice of an organised body of victims. Its second purpose is to help those who cannot afford a lawyer. The association is non-profit and non-political, conducts no business activity, and its communications remain neutral towards the victims’ legal representatives. The firm supports the association pro bono, among other things by preparing information texts. Statutes, membership rules and running summaries of the case: zondas.pl (in Polish).
The victims’ group on Facebook
A moderated Facebook group brings together Zondacrypto customers whose withdrawals were blocked. It carries current information on the prosecutors’, the trustee’s and the consumer authority’s proceedings, practical guidance and warnings against secondary fraud. The group exists to share information and coordinate action; it does not replace individual legal advice. The group operates in Polish. Join the Facebook group.
Entrust your case to us
If you are waiting for a withdrawal from Zondacrypto, describe your situation through our contact form: when and how you deposited funds, which withdrawal orders were not executed, and whether you have already filed a criminal complaint. We reply in writing, in English, indicating which steps in your case carry a deadline and which can be taken later without loss. Until 27 October 2026 the most important act is the filing of your claim with the trustee; everything else in this case can be done without haste, but not without care.
Legal and factual status as of 8 September 2026. The charges and detentions described on this page are not findings of a court; all persons named are presumed innocent. Assessments marked as probable remain hypotheses to be verified in the proceedings.
