Lodged between a designer clothing shop and a luxury luggage store, it is the gateway into a discreet sixth-floor office from where one of the Czech Republic’s richest people runs his empire.
In the only book ever written on Křetínský, Mister K, the writer Jérôme Lefilliâtre records: “ Tkáč works on intuition, on emotion, on impulse, but it’s not perfect when you need to get into the details of operations. Křetínský, as a lawyer, has this. That’s why he became so important at J&T.” It seems odd, then, that all the Royal Mail focus has centred on a man so enigmatic he is dubbed the “Czech Sphinx”. This looks doubly strange as, if Křetínský is the epitome of smooth, Tkáč and J&T seemingly possess slightly rougher edges.The territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands lies in the Atlantic Ocean, about 200 miles off the east coast of Cuba, and is one of 14 UK overseas territories.
A hearing could consider a $6m loan received by Misick from J&T Banka in 2007, which was given “on advantageous terms from the overseas backers of a development project on Salt Cay”, according to Robin Auld’s subsequent 2009J&T Banka gave the then Turks and Caicos premier, Michael Misick, a $6m loan for a development project on Salt Cay.
J&T denied to the Guardian it had been directly negotiating with the Turks and Caicos government about the funding, but there was very little effort to distance itself from the detail in Auld’s report when the scandal broke. A spokesperson for Vitek and CPI PG said the New York claim was “based on false allegations” and filed with the “purpose of inflicting maximum reputational damage to CPI PG”. The spokesperson added Vitek and the company believed all the claims were “completely baseless”.