Polish authorities to seek Interpol intervention as Cinkciarz exchange users lose $30M

The founder of online currency exchange Cinkciarz.pl is now wanted in Poland for defrauding clients in what has been described as one of the biggest fintech scandals in Polish history.

An arrest warrant has been issued for the entrepreneur who is believed to be hiding abroad. After receiving thousands of complaints from users of his platform, officials estimated their losses at well over a hundred million złoty ($30 million).

Polish prosecutors issue arrest warrant for Cinkciarz CEO

Law enforcement authorities in Poland are looking for the founder and chief executive of the online currency exchange service Cinkciarz.pl. Identified as Marcin P., the man who chairs the fintech firm’s board of directors, is currently outside the country.

The Prosecutor’s Office in Poznań announced this week it has issued an arrest warrant for the businessman right after a district court in the city ordered him held in pre-trial detention for 30 days, Polish media reported.

The decision comes after charges were brought against Marcin in March, including fraud, the PAP news agency noted. According to the latest estimates, Cinkciarz customers have lost more than 112 million Polish złoty ($30 million), allegedly used to fund other ventures.

Prosecutors have been working to unravel the suspected fraud scheme since October 2024, when police investigators, assisted by cybercrime specialists, raided the company’s headquarters in the city of Zielona Góra.

The operation was conducted after authorities received over 7,000 reports from clients who lost access to their deposits on the exchange. In December, they moved to block 328 bank accounts of the trading platform.

Marcin P. founded Cinkciarz (“money changer”) in 2006, when exchange offices were gaining popularity amid a foreign currency lending boom in Poland. It eventually grew to a business with 35 billion złoty of annual revenue, Fakt.pl pointed out in an article about “one of the biggest scandals in Polish fintech.”

While the platform did not deal with cryptocurrencies, the crypto news outlet Bitcoin.pl remarked that its story is “another reminder that in the world of finance (both traditional and digital), trust takes years to build and can be lost in seconds,” suggesting:

“Maybe it’s time to finally take the ‘don’t trust, verify’ idea seriously, not just in the context of the cryptocurrency world, but across all financial services?”

“112 million and thousands of hurt customers are the price paid for overly easy trust and a lack of proper oversight,” added the portal, which has recently published critical posts about Poland’s upcoming crypto regulations.

Fugitive fintech exec yet to be found and arrested

The Polish court has accepted the prosecutors’ conclusion that the gathered evidence is sufficient to convict the suspect. It also acknowledged the potential for a harsh penalty, as the crimes he is accused of can bring him up to 25 years in prison.

But Marcin P. is yet to be apprehended and questioned as he is not in Poland, and the court also admitted there’s a high risk of him evading justice.

According to the financial news portal Bankier.pl, the CEO has left for the United States. This has been confirmed by a group of Cinkciarz customers who analyzed photos posted by him and his wife on social media about six months ago.

The Polish entrepreneur has previously described the developments surrounding his company as a “media spectacle.” The report quotes a comment he made to a LinkedIn post in June, calling Cinkciarz a pyramid scheme, in which he arrogantly stated:

“I’ve already beaten the giant Mastercard 12 times, so I can easily deal with the pathology of the Polish system … And I advise everyone else to refrain from making hasty judgments.”

Poland likely to seek red notice from Interpol for Marcin

Adam Szewc, a lawyer from the Chmielniak Adwokaci law firm, told Bankier he expects Polish officials to ask Interpol to issue a “red notice” alert for Marcin’s arrest, which will allow U.S. counterparts to detain him until an extradition request is submitted.

In March, Polish police arrested Robert G., a member of Cinkciarz’s management board, and charged him with complicity in committing fraud. Then, in May, the company’s chief accountant, Monika J., was also detained.

Poland’s Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) has revoked the payment services license of Conotoxia, an entity associated with Cinkciarz, whose bank accounts were blocked, too.