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0 pointsconsp4y ago0 comments

This reminds me of puzzles (as in physical 1000 piece things) in the 90s. It was cheaper to manufacture them somewhere, import them, export them to Spain, import them again than sell them straight from the country of origin which I think was Finland. All the while the stuff never moved and it was all on paper afaik. The lettering had to be in Spanish though but it's a puzzle, you know how it works.

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rasz4y ago

Biggest Polish IT company was bankrupted by this. Optimus SA was called Polish Dell&Yahoo combined in the nineties. They manufactured computers, made multimedia/education software and games, distributed software/games, IT contracts/system integration, POS systems deployments, ERP, consulting, biggest web portal, biggest online communicator, biggest search engine.

.. then one day in 1999 ministry of education announced a huge contracts for school computerization program, and specifically requested "no VAT" prices (22%) from all bidders. The only way to achieve this was exporting/re-importing Polish build computers, something Ministry itself not only suggested, but was publicly proud of securing.

Year later local prosecutor accused Optimus of evading $2m VAT, froze all assets (~$100mil company in 2000) and arranged SWAT to arrest CEO, leading to inability to pay wages/service debt. 3 years and multiple appeals later investigation was closed without so much as "sorry". This wasnt even the only company destroyed same way. Another one was JTT, mayor PC hardware distributor https://pl-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/JTT_Computer?...

In 2011 CD Project reverse merger with corpse of Optimus SA to get on the stock exchange. https://pl-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/CD_Projekt?_x...

11 years later (2014) CD Project managed to "win" ~$300K settlement for court mistake https://crn-pl.translate.goog/aktualnosci/cd-projekt-dostal-...

Same year mayor shareholder of defunct JTT received ~$10mil settlement, which was immediately overturned. It only took them another 7 years to finally get ~$1mil just last year https://www-pb-pl.translate.goog/mci-otrzyma-5-mln-zl-odszko... for the destruction of a company worth ~$20mil in 2000.

mszcz4y ago

Yeah, I remember that. I think I still have a framed, very old cover of Wprost with Roman Kluska (the owner of Optimus) after we won a pyrrhic victory against the state for that, years after the fact. Of course, none of the bureaucrats responsible for burning Optimus to the ground got even as much as a citation. In fact, I vaguely recall reading about them getting bonuses for slapping a big fine on Optimus.

The framed cover used to be a reminder that, in general, the state and the Polish equivalent of the IRS is not, and never will be, your friend. Sure, I've had some friendly and helpful chats with multiple people working for our IRS but I've never forgotten Optimus.

eru4y ago

They are called jigsaw puzzlez in English, I believe.

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