Cezary Gmyz received dozens of recordings from wiretapping scandal source

Journalist Cezary Gmyz has revealed that he received dozens of recordings connected to a major wiretapping scandal directly from businessman Marek Falenta. Falenta, a key figure in the scandal, testified to investigators that Gmyz and Piotr Nisztor were considered "trusted journalists" by the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA), acting as conduits for materials from the eavesdropping affair.

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My role was to obtain recordings and pass them on to the CBA or two journalists designated by them: Mr. Nisztor and Mr. Gmyz. They are their trusted journalists.

According to Falenta's testimony from March 2021, he operated on behalf of the CBA, purchasing recordings from a waiter and then transferring them to agency officials. He claimed this cooperation with the services continued even after the scandal broke. Falenta stated that initially, recordings went directly to CBA officers, but the method changed after the scandal's exposure, with Gmyz becoming the intermediary for transferring the tapes.

Falenta recounted that the exchanges often occurred in CBA-designated apartments. He expressed fear of being monitored by another service, which led the CBA to devise the plan of using Gmyz for tape transfers. Falenta also asserted that reports, which later appeared in the media, were evidence of his cooperation with the CBA. He claimed Gmyz received these documents from CBA officer Artur Chodziński and even showed them to Falenta before publication, with one document allegedly containing instructions for further recording acquisition.

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The transfers of the tapes took place in apartments designated by the CBA, most often at Hoża and Piękna streets. After the scandal broke, I was afraid to do it and wanted to end it. The gentlemen from the CBA were afraid that another service was monitoring me, and that's why they came up with the idea of transferring the tapes through Mr. Cezary Gmyz.

In February 2015, Gmyz initially stated he first heard of Marek Falenta only after the businessman's arrest related to the wiretapping scandal. He later provided prosecutors with a copy of a conversation recorded in June 2014 between then-Deputy Prime Minister Elżbieta Bieńkowska and the head of the CBA, Paweł Wojtunik. At the time, Gmyz invoked journalistic privilege when questioned about the source of the recording and whether he possessed other tapes. His stance shifted in January 2023, after being released from confidentiality, when Gmyz admitted that Marek Falenta was indeed his primary source for information regarding the scandal and that he had received numerous recordings from the businessman on an encrypted drive. Gmyz confirmed that he passed some of these materials to the prosecution.

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I received the recordings from Marek Falenta. There were dozens of these recordings.