In Slovakia, the gangs of the 1990s were succeeded by an organised crime network made up of former fighters of the gangster “founding fathers”. Among those that have made the most headway is a group nicknamed the Pita’s. Their fame grew through their links to big business and show business. This was despite their reputation as the most militant gang. The Slovak phenomenon – the portrayal of mafiosi in tabloids and serious media as a success story – was also evident here.
An example is the extremely popular TV Markíza programme “Smotánka” (success stories of Smer politicians, Boris Kollár, Štefan Harabin or Marian Kočner appear in individual episodes). Juraj Ondrejčák was repeatedly presented as a successful businessman, father of two children and former boyfriend of Miss Slovakia 2003 Adriana Pospíšilová. Ondrejčák is nicknamed Pito and the gang is named after him.
Ondrejčák began in the 1990s as a leading representative of the neo-Nazi scene in Bratislava. As an uninhibited Nazi armed to the teeth, he and his crew were used to do the dirty work for the elderly Sýkorov clan. But according to journalist Tom Nicholson, he also worked for business leaders and other mafia celebrities such as Ivan Kmotrík, Zoroslav Kollár and Marian Kočner. And it is the period of his greatest success that is covered in this chapter of the History of Corruption.
Ondrejčák was also supposed to work for businessman Ladislav Rehak. His son Martin was even supposed to be the group’s court lawyer. It was Martin Rehák himself who was put behind bars on suspicion of toxic links.
Paradoxical was also the pose of “Pita”, who, with a law degree from the controversial Danubius University in Sládkovičov (the topic of his rigorous thesis was “premeditated murder”), positioned himself as an expert on corruption. For example, after the murder of former President of the Constitutional Court of the Czechoslovak Constitutional Court Ernest Valko, he invited Justice Minister Daniel Lipšić to meet with him, supposedly to reveal the details of the murder operation that he knew about. Lipšic refused, which offended Ondrejčák.
Among the most famous actions of the group of drinkers is the murder of a businessman in the Bratislava Irish pub, where an unfortunate innocent visitor died. Another media notoriety was the murder at the Boston Bar in Bratislava, where the drinkers stabbed a young man who confronted a gang member who was harassing his girlfriend.
Most of the gang’s income came from drug sales. Ondrejčák controlled everything, his people distributed the drugs to the dealers, whom they also guarded. Significant profits also came from the ransoms the group collected not only in the capital but also in the surrounding area. Ondrejčák allegedly had a drug problem himself, which sometimes cost him his vigilance and caused him to make mistakes.
Among other things, he drew attention to himself not only in the media, but also in the streets. All the gang members drove Mercedes G’s, walked around the cities in camouflage, with visible weapons and bulletproof vests. In one of their warehouses, the police managed to make the biggest weapons find in the history of Slovakia – in addition to rocket launchers, they also found over 200 guns, grenades and artillery mines. The then police president Jaroslav Spišiak declared war on the gang, spoke publicly about it and Ondrejčák was subjected to as many as 13 police searches in one day.
Thanks to them, he was arrested and indicted in 2011 along with 23 others. Sixteen members of the drinking ring received sentences ranging from 18 to 24 years for the same number of offences. Juraj “Pityo” Ondrejcak received 18 years. The court punished him for running a criminal group, illegal arming and damaging foreign property. The Supreme Court then reduced Ondrejčák’s sentence to 16 years, so he is not giving up on returning to his business.
While most of the group’s Bratislava executives are behind bars, bosses from other cities are still trying to avoid detention. These are members of the Nitra and Piešt’any branches of the group. The bosses of the Nitra and Piestany branches include Lubos Ferus and Miroslav Abraham. Their fates are still the subject of legal battles.
