ZondaCrypto’s crisis deepened on Friday when Polish news outlet Onet reported that CEO Przemysław Kral had gone to Israel as prosecutors investigated the exchange on suspicion of fraud and investor losses.
According to the report, Krall has been in Israel for about a week and holds Israeli citizenship, a factor that could complicate his extradition to Poland. Last Friday, Polish authorities opened an investigation into ZondaCrypto on suspicion of fraud and investor losses. Cointelegraph also confirmed that the email address previously used to communicate with Krall is no longer available.
This development comes a week after Krall admitted last Thursday that he was unable to access his ZondaCrypto cold wallet containing 4,500 bitcoins, which was the last publicly known communication at the time of reporting. Notes from Poland, citing public prosecutor’s office spokesperson Michał Binkiewicz, reported that Polish prosecutors have identified hundreds of possible victims and potential losses of at least 350 million Polish zlotys (approximately $97 million).
Despite Zondacrypto’s size being much smaller than global exchanges such as Binance, the incident put further pressure on one of the largest crypto platforms in Central and Eastern Europe.
ZondaCrypto Board Resignation Increases Pressure
The controversy deepened this week following the resignation of the supervisory board of BBTrade Estonia OÜ, the Estonian company that runs the exchange.
Former board member Georgi Janiashvili said in a LinkedIn post on Monday that the board learned of the scale of the ZondaCrypto crisis through media reports, not internally. He also pointed to “significant discrepancies” between public statements and information available to the board.
Source: Georgi Janiashvili
“In a governance structure where ownership and management are concentrated in one person, effective oversight depends on transparency, timely communication, and mutual trust,” Djaniashvili wrote, adding, “Unfortunately, that foundation is severely undermined.”
Why is the Zondacrypt case being investigated in Poland?
Although Zondacrypto is registered in Estonia, the company has a significant user base and operations in Poland, particularly among Polish-speaking users, which led Polish authorities to launch a criminal investigation following complaints from customers in the country.
Zondacrypto was founded in Katowice in 2014 under the name BitBay by Sylwester Suszek, who has been missing since 2022. Krall said in public comments last week that Suszek is to blame for Zondacrypto’s inability to access cold wallets.
Source: Przemysław Kral
The issue has become a hot topic in Polish politics, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk alleging links between ZondaCrypto and Russian capital and political influence, citing the exchange’s early history and subsequent growth under new management.
In an official announcement on April 17, Tusk said up to 30,000 ZondaCrypto users may have been affected and compared the incident to previous financial scandals in Poland.
Tusk also noted that Poland has repeatedly delayed passing legislation in line with the European Union’s Cryptoassets Market Regulation (MiCA) framework, saying the lack of a comprehensive legal framework for investor protection leaves authorities with no choice but to act later.
The case could have far-reaching implications for how the EU approaches crypto supervision under MiCA, with some member states insisting on more centralized supervision rather than national-level enforcement.
