Poland’s Anti-Corruption Bureau the CBA says it has detained 18 suspects in a crackdown on an organised international criminal gang that spirited billions out of the country in an apparent tax evasion scheme. The group is believed to have transferred at least 8.6 billion PLN (2 billion EUR or 2.2 billion USD) abroad via a “national payment institution” to the detriment of state coffers, the bureau said on its website on Wednesday. It added that the group operated in the country from 2016 to 2019 evading taxes owed to the Polish internal revenue service, including VAT and corporate income tax. The group comprised 26 companies run by Polish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Ukrainian citizens who did business mainly near Warsaw. The agency said the detentions were made after several months of work by investigators and prosecutors and following searches in more than 60 locations. The crackdown involved nearly 300 officers from the CBA, aided by border guards and military police.

Source – Polskie Radio

A report published this week by opinion polling company CBOS shows that most Poles have been happy with their life during the last year. The company asked just under a thousand Poles about their feelings on life over the past year. The survey showed that almost two thirds of Poles said that they regularly or very regularly felt that everything in their lives was going well, while a similar number said that they felt they had succeeded in something in life in the past 12 months. 57 percent said that they were proud of their achievements on numerous occasions, and almost every second person said that they had been particularly interested in, or excited by, something over the past year. In terms of negative emotions, only 1in 3 people said that they had experienced irritability or aggravation during 2019, while a similar number claimed that on a number of occasions they had felt disregarded by the authorities and only one in 4 of those surveyed said that they frequently felt discouraged or weary, and just over a fifth said they felt helpless. According to the authors of the report, those who felt best about themselves were respondents under the age of 35 and not surprisingly, those pleased with their financial situation.

Source – Polskie Radio

Robert Kubica, the first and only Polish Formula 1 driver, will take part in the German Touring Car Masters racing series in the upcoming 2020 season it has been announced. Simultaneously, Kubica will be a test and reserve driver of Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen F1 racing team. Kubica told a press conference “This will be a new race series for me. The German Touring Car Masters is a historic series, I always respected it. It is less known than F1…but the drivers are very skilled, there is a difficult challenge ahead of me”. During the 2019 season, Kubica was the driver of Williams F1 racing team, but the cars used by this team were no match for their rivals and won only one point over the entire season. In 2006, Kubica became the first Pole to race in Formula One, the most prestigious car racing series. Two years later he achieved his only victory, after winning the race in Montreal, Canada. His F1 career was stopped in 2011 after a serious injury suffered in an accident during a rally in Italy.

Source – PolandIn.com, TVP, TouringCarTimes.com

And finally, The Gdynia Seahawks, one of the cornerstone clubs in Poland’s American football community and winners of three Polish championships, have shut down their operations after 14 years. The club made the announcement after the players reportedly refused to play for the current management according to an article on the American Football International website. The report refers to several events that appear to have sealed the fate of the club, including the appointment of an acting president who was not given authority to sign for the club, the former president and head coach who helped build the club who resigned last August and apparent financial issues. Recently, players started departing, some through retirement and others moving to different clubs. The situation came to a head in the last couple of weeks and now with the departure of key players and a lack of youth players to move up, those players who had been holding out hope, have quit.

Source – AmericanFootballInternational.com

Weather

Today’s weather will be cloudy with a chance of Nowy artykuł showers in a moderate breeze. Temperatures will reach 6 degrees centigrade (43 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day, dropping to 4 degrees centigrade overnight.

Sunday will see temperatures of around 11 degrees centigrade with rain likely as the day wears on and there will be a fresh breeze.