Dogged investigative work and lots of shoe leather lead to Kitsap arrest of Czech fugitive

Tipped off by a traffic stop, a dodgy mail drop and an abandoned laptop, Kitsap County Sheriff’s detectives and a determined U.S. postal inspector succeeded last week in capturing a fugitive Czech organized crime figure who had eluded an international manhunt for more than a decade.

Jaromir Prokop, 54, described by Interpol as a fugitive wanted for kidnapping, extortion and murder in the Czech Republic, was arrested April 28 by Kitsap undercover officers in an auto parts store in Auburn.

The arrest was a team effort by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Marshall’s Service, and the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Department, said Scott Wilson, the sheriff’s spokesman.

According to an extradition warrant issued by a federal magistrate in Seattle, Prokop was a key figure in a Czech organized crime ring known as the “Berdych Gang,” known for kidnapping people and holding them for ransom.

In one 1996 case, the kidnapping of a goldsmith went wrong, and the victim was killed, according to Czech police. Prokop fled the country and has been apparently hiding out in the United States ever since.

Master of disguise

Prokop was adept at changing his appearance, and an expert in forged documents, according to Wilson. He is believed to have established multiple identities under various aliases, and has held driver’s licenses and birth certificates in several states, all seemingly valid.

He is believed to have made a living forging and selling false documents, including passports, to international clients, most recently using a UPS mail drop in Tacoma.

Kitsap County entered the case because of a routine traffic stop there last year, according to Wilson. The alias on the driver’s license caught the eye of a postal inspector detailed to the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team, who been alerted to watch for it by the U.S. Marshal’s service.

The postal inspector, whom authorities asked to remain unnamed because of his undercover work, traced the alias to the Tacoma UPS store, where Prokop was caught on video. What followed was a 50-day manhunt, with undercover detectives working in shifts to trace Prokop’s movments, Wilson said.

A dropped laptop

The investigators caught a break at Sea-Tac airport, said a person familiar with the case, when Prokop, alarmed when he realized he was being followed, dropped a laptop and a sheaf of documents as he fled.

A warrant was obtained for the laptop, and it revealed a skein of business transactions, including a complicated auto-parts scam, that enabled investigators to lie in wait for him at an Auburn Auto Zone store.

An undercover Kitsap detective followed Prokop into the store and identified him, Wilson said, though he was masked for coronavirus and was wearing a baseball cap. Uniformed Auburn police officers assisted with the arrest. Prokop, who was not armed, did not resist.

Prokop was turned over to a U.S. Marshal and is being held pending extradition to the Czech Republic.

Kidnap and murder

In the complaint against Prokop filed April 3 in Seattle, Assistant U.S. Attorney C. Andrew Colasurdo listed three Czech counts, the most serious one involving kidnap and murder.

According to Czech prosecutors, on November 6, 1996, an organized crime gang operating under the direction of Prokop and a partner kidnapped Vaclav Toman, chairman of the Czech Goldsmith’s Union, from the parking garage of his home in Prague, the capital.

Prokap was angry that Toman had not paid him 300,000 Czech koruna (about $12,000) he said he was owed for supplying Toman with gold. He ordered his three accomplices — who were later tried and convicted — to bring Toman to his cottage, where he would be sweated for the money.

But the thugs bungled the job, apparently asphyxiating the goldsmith while trying to chloroform him. His body was found in a wooded area near Prague four days later.

In another case cited in the complaint, Prokop is said to have masterminded the 2,719,000 koruna ($109,709) robbery of a Prague home-improvement store in which the cashier and two security guards were tied up and sedated with benzodiazepam.

In a third case Prokop and an accomplice are accused of robbing a courier carrying a large amount of cash, and in a fourth, he arranged to have a business associate kidnapped until he paid a large ransom.

Lt. Jon VanGesen, who heads the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team, said Prokof was one of the fugitives most sought internationally.

“We are extremely proud of the teamwork, coordination and resolve investigators demonstrated to locate and safely arrest Prokop, allowing authorities in the Czech Republic to hold him accountable,” he said in a statement.

This story was originally published May 1, 2020 at 8:03 PM.