On behalf of Zeman’s government. People close to the camp collect millions from auctions

Last weekend, František Kupka’s abstract work entitled The Conception became the most expensive painting ever auctioned in the Czech Republic, with the amount of 115 million. Almost half a million of this package of money is now claimed by the private Prague association Gestor. Although it has nothing to do with the owner of the work or the auction house.

This is not the only case. The Gestor association loses tens of millions in this way every year. And that on the basis of the credentials granted to him by Miloš Zeman’s government at the end of its era. Thanks to this, Gestor is the only one that manages the copyrights of painters and sculptors and also pays a share of the sales to their heirs.

But in cases where, according to Gestor, the heirs are not clear – as in the case of Kupka – part of the selected millions remains in the power of the organization. And Seznam Zpráv research shows that this private association subsequently “invests” the unpaid money in an opaque and interconnected network of people and companies connected to the executive director of the association.

This is the Příbram lawyer Antonín Janák – the former founder of Podnikatelská družstevní zálazna (PDZ), which is now being investigated by the police on suspicion of money laundering. The controllers of the association are then close to Kamil Bahbouh – the previous treasurer of the camp and Janák’s acquaintance.

Until recently, the Gestor association itself managed the money in an account held at the PDZ credit union, which was repeatedly fined by the authorities for not reporting suspicious financial operations.

For example, in the annual report for the year 2021, it is written that “free investment funds (of Gestor) in the amount of 14 million crowns were deposited in the savings account of the Enterprise Credit Union”. According to Janák, Gestor left Kampelička at the turn of the year – right after that, the police and central bank inspectors started circling around, who are now threatening to revoke the license.

What does the Gestor association do?

When the editors of Seznam Zpráv, attorney Antonín Janák, asked about the connection between Gestor and the PDZ camp, he strongly objected. For example, he does not see anything remarkable in the fact that the almost eighty-year-old mother of the long-time “treasurer” of Kamil Bahbouh Jaroslava Bičovská sits on the Gestor’s control committee.

“You can find such interconnectedness everywhere, we are all from Adam and from Eve. Mrs. Bičovská is an artist from whom these things are completely stolen, she has nothing to do with finances, she floats in her artistic spheres,” declared Janák.

He also downplays the fact that, in addition to Bahbouh’s mother, there were two other members who previously worked in Bahbouh’s construction and restoration company, Gema Art Group, in the control committee.

It is not easy to find out exactly where attorney Janák is sending the “free” money that the association is supposed to administer to artists by law. The executive director declined to comment.

Gestor does publish annual reports, but they only contain general statements from which it is impossible to clearly read how much money has flowed, where exactly and under what conditions.

In the last published annual report from 2022, for example, there is talk of an unspecified “investment agreement with the Bahbouhs”, on the basis of which the Gestor association was to receive around 157 thousand crowns in interest during the year. At the same time, executors are after Kamil Bahbouh. According to the register, they currently owe more than 34 million.

“But that’s none of your business,” declares the Příbram lawyer to these facts. “I am responsible for Gestor’s money,” he emphasizes, adding that the other members of the association have given him full confidence in this regard and that he, with his private property, guarantees that the investments will not be loss-making. “I can do whatever I want with the money, but I am obliged to ensure that there is some income from it for Gestor,” said attorney Janák.

He sees his unique position, where he was given a free hand to make decisions about money from the members of the artists’ association, as very effective. “Enlightened absolutism is the best form of government. If artists are gifted at something, then I can do other things,” Janák describes.

When he invests Gestor’s money, he basically turns to people he knows.

However, the Seznam News found out that Janák actually lent money to himself. The last annual report of Gestor also mentions the unspecified abbreviation “NVL”. And that in connection with the “investment agreement”.

According to the reporters’ search, the formula relates to a company named NVL, which is based at the same address as Gestor and, according to the register, its ultimate owner is attorney Janák. “Do you have the feeling that I’m hiding something when it’s in the annual report?” Janák confirmed the connection when asked directly by reporters. And at the same time, he began to declare that the mentioned investment is properly repaid, including interest.

A fragment of the accounting from 2019, which Seznam Zprávy has at their disposal, also mentions a loan of more than 12 million to another close friend of Janák – Vladimír Trkal, who acts as the honorary consul of the Republic of Cape Verde in the Czech Republic, and the consulate is located at the same address in the center of Prague as the Gestor association.

It is not clear what the loan was for or its details, because Vladimír Trkal did not respond to Seznam Zpráv’s request for an explanation even after the emergency. Questions about Janák’s former assistant and cooperating attorney Michal Trkal also remained without a clear answer. He has an office in the same building as the Gestor association or the consulate, but he heard the editor’s question as to whether he is a relative of the consul.

The Gestor documents, which were obtained and analyzed by Seznam Zprávy, also mention the promissory note of the restitutor Josef Kohn. He is also connected to Janák, but also to Bahbouh. In the past, the indebted Bahbouh had an official permanent residence in Kohna’s house in Pilsen and, according to available information, it was also a large client of Janák’s law firm.

At the same time, Seznam Zprávy has at their disposal an older e-mail communication in which the “treasurer” of the camp, Kamil Bahbouh, writes to his cousin Pavlo Wurst that the Gestor association was originally his project. But then – as Bahbouh wrote – a kind of barter took place between him and Janák – it took place about twenty years ago, when the pawnshop urgently needed to increase its capital, and the art dealer Bahbouh and Wurst decided to join it.

“Before this increase, I bought the cottage as such from Janák in exchange for a Gestor and an additional payment. Gestor – the author’s protection organization for the collective administration of fair settlement from the sale of works of art was a joint work of me and Štěpánka,” Bahbouh described the history in a message to Wurst.

By Štěpánka, Bahbouh means his wife, about whom director Janák then stated that as a lawyer in the past she prepared the founding documents of Gestor.

Seznam The News wanted Kamil Bahbouh to now comment on whether everything really happened, as he once stated, and the state-guaranteed copyright organization became the subject of his private business. “I’m not going to comment on Mr. Wurst at all,” Bahbouh only replied, not commenting on his own exchange.

Antonín Janák claims that there was never any exchange of property. “That’s nonsense, I ran the Gestor before I stopped working at the pawn shop,” he said.

The question is whether the state authorities have an overview of what is happening with the money collected from the sold works of art, whether anyone has information about the association’s ties to the problematic credit union and the people around it.

Minister of Culture Martin Baxa (ODS) did not respond to these questions from Seznam Zpráv, ministry spokeswoman Jana Malíková stated that the department supervises Gestor.

“The Ministry of Culture supervises the association Gestor in accordance with the copyright law, namely supervision over the exercise of collective administration and compliance with the obligations of collective administrators,” said Malíková, adding that the ministry has not found any wrongdoings yet.

However, the executive director Antonín Janák himself stated that the ministry does not see the money flows. “Of course, they don’t get into those intestines, they wouldn’t even understand that during the inspection,” he added. However, representatives of the ministry are said to go to all member meetings.

Last year, Gestor collected around 32 million crowns in author fees (it physically paid over 19 million crowns to authors). A full fifth of the income, similarly to other years, was swallowed up by internal overhead costs. In addition to wages and salaries for the apparatus (among other things, 600,000 for director Janák), ​​the services of Janák’s law firm, which works for Gestor, are also paid for. For example, in 2016, according to the documents, it was 500,000, director Janák himself states that today it is 10,000 per month.

Other money flows to the service company Ravix Assistant Facilities, which is based at the same address as Janák’s law firm in Prague. For years, the Gestor association only hired this company, which according to the financial statements had almost no employees, then bought it back in 2018. And this from a chain of entities, which again ends with Janák’s company NVL