RARS scandal. There is an arrest warrant for Paweł Szopa. The defense attorney announces an appeal against the decision on temporary arrest

On Tuesday, the website of the Warsaw Police Headquarters published an arrest warrant for Paweł Szopa, issued by the Silesian Branch of the Department for Organized Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor's Office based in Katowice.

The police ask anyone with any information about the whereabouts of the wanted man to contact officers of the Warsaw Police Headquarters in person or by phone at 47 7237657, 47 7237893, emergency number 112 or the nearest police unit.

The issuance of the letter was possible because on Monday the District Court in Katowice applied a preventive measure against Paweł Szopa in the form of temporary arrest for a period of 90 days. This is the basis for searching for him under an arrest warrant.

The spokesman for the National Prosecutor's Office, Przemysław Nowak, spoke more about this subject in an interview with TVN24. – Today, the prosecutor initiated a search for the suspect with an arrest warrant. This is a consequence of yesterday's court decision to apply temporary arrest to this suspect – he said.

– The findings allowed the prosecutor to formulate charges a few weeks ago. These are serious charges concerning, among other things, participation in an organized criminal group. This of course concerns cooperation with the Government Agency for Strategic Reserves – he informed. He noted that “these charges have not yet been announced to the suspect, due to the fact that his whereabouts were unknown, he could not be detained despite attempts”.

– We suspect that this suspect is hiding. Of course, we have some knowledge about his whereabouts. However, similarly to the case of Michał K., we will not share this information on an ongoing basis, because it could obviously make the search more difficult – he added.

Information about the arrest warrant was first reported by Polsat News.

Also on Tuesday, attorney Bartosz Lewandowski, representing Paweł Szopa, shared his client's statement on platform X. “In connection with the information about the issuance of an arrest warrant for me, I would like to state that from the beginning of this case I have declared and continue to declare my full readiness to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in order to clarify all circumstances,” Szopa wrote, emphasizing that since he learned about the ongoing proceedings, he has been in contact with the prosecutor's office.

According to Szopa, the court's decision to uphold the prosecutor's appeal against the first-instance court's decision not to uphold the motion for arrest was made during a court session in which his defense lawyers were prevented from participating, which – in his opinion – deprived him of “the right to defense and put into question the chances for a fair and just trial.”

Szopa said that he had filed a motion for a safe conduct through his defense attorneys. “I hope that the motion will be accepted and that I will be able to present all evidence that significantly differs from the course of events described by the media based on leaks,” he wrote in a statement. A safe conduct is a document that promises the accused to remain free until the final conclusion of the criminal procedure. In exchange for a safe conduct, the accused undertakes to answer in the trial from a so-called “free foot.”

Attorney Lewandowski noted at Tuesday's press briefing that the motion regarding the safe conduct was filed with the district court before the date of the detention hearing before the court of first instance. – This is the knowledge that the prosecutor's office has. I do not understand the position of the prosecutor's office, which claims that it knows nothing about the safe conduct – he said.

Referring to the decision to arrest Szopa, Lewandowski reported that on Friday the defense attorneys received information that the prosecutor's office's appeal had been filed with the court, but they did not receive information about the date of the appeal hearing in this case.

– Unexpectedly on Monday, in fact from the media and an official statement from the prosecutor's office, we learned that the prosecutor's appeal had been positively considered by the court – he said. According to him, the court issued the decision “in a closed session, without notification, without allowing the defense attorneys to take the stand.” In his opinion, this created an “unacceptable” situation and a “gross violation of the basic rules of criminal procedure.”

Lewandowski said he would file a complaint against the court's decision to arrest him. “It will definitely be filed immediately, within seven days of the delivery of the decision,” he declared.

The attorney also argued that Szopa did not flee the country in connection with the ongoing proceedings, and “his departure was during the holiday season, it was related to the holiday period”.

Szopa is the creator of the Red is Bad brand. The charges against him concern participation in an organized criminal group and exceeding authority and failing to fulfill duties in order to gain financial benefits. In the same investigation, charges were brought against Michał K., former head of the Government Agency for Strategic Reserves.

The investigation into irregularities in RARS was initiated in December 2023 at the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, and in April 2024 the case was taken over by the Silesian Branch of the Department for Organized Crime and Corruption of the National Prosecutor's Office in Katowice.

The investigation concerns, among other things, the fact that RARS employees exceeded their authority and failed to fulfil their duties in the period from February 2021 to November 2023 in order to gain financial benefits. This concerns “organising and processing the purchase of goods for the above-mentioned Agency, and thus acting to the detriment of the public interest”.

On August 22, the prosecutor's office announced that in the investigation into irregularities in RARS, it had issued a decision to bring charges against two more people – former head of the Agency Michał K. and Paweł Szopa. The charges are related to participation in an organized criminal group and failure to fulfill duties and exceeding authority in order to gain financial benefits. The whereabouts of both suspects were unknown. At the request of the prosecutor, the Katowice-Wschód District Court agreed to arrest K., which allowed for the initiation of a search warrant for him and the issuance of a European Arrest Warrant for him. On Monday afternoon, the prosecutor's office announced that K. had been detained in London. At that time, the court of first instance did not grant the motion to arrest Szopa, finding that the fear of tampering with his case was not great enough to require temporary arrest, especially since the suspect had filed a motion to issue a safe conduct letter against him. The prosecutor filed an appeal against that decision, which the court granted.