Justice Minister and Prosecutor-General Waldemar Żurek on Wednesday called on anyone with information about the Epstein affair to report it to the National Public Prosecutor’s Office, describing such testimony as highly important.
The appeal came after the National Public Prosecutor’s Office said a prosecutor from its Investigation Team No. 5 had formally launched an inquiry into suspected human trafficking committed between 2009 and 2019 in Poland and other countries.
At a news conference at the prosecutor’s office headquarters in Warsaw, spokesman Przemysław Nowak said the opening of the case would allow investigators to begin full evidentiary proceedings, something that cannot be done during a preliminary checking phase.
He added that one of the first procedural steps would be to send requests for information and evidence to two European countries under a European Investigation Order, an instrument used by European Union member states to gather evidence across borders.
According to prosecutors, the documents reviewed so far point to a reasonable suspicion that a trafficking crime may have been committed, including in Poland.
The suspected mechanism involved recruiting unidentified adult and minor females, including Polish citizens, misleading them about the true nature of jobs abroad, arranging their transport out of Poland, and then handing them over to others for sexual exploitation.
Żurek said such conduct may meet the legal definition of human trafficking.
He stressed that trafficking does not require kidnapping or physical force in the everyday sense. He said it can also involve deception, fraud, abuse of dependence or taking advantage of a victim’s difficult situation.
In the case of minors, he added, recruitment and transfer for the purpose of exploitation may itself constitute the crime.
The minister heads a government analytical team created in early February to examine Polish threads in the case surrounding Epstein, the disgraced American financier and convicted sex offender whose network has drawn worldwide scrutiny for years.
Polish officials began speaking publicly about possible domestic connections earlier this year.
In early February, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said there were initial reports suggesting that individuals in the southern Polish city of Kraków had informed Epstein they already had a group of Polish women or girls. He said there appeared to be more such traces in the case.
Prosecutors said the broader investigation will not be limited to one suspected offense. Nowak said the team would examine as widely as possible the activities of a criminal group linked to Epstein in connection with Polish threads in the case.
Under Polish law, human trafficking is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
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Source: IAR, PAP
Click on the audio player above for a report by Agnieszka Łaszczuk.