Prosecutors said the suspects were charged with two counts each: paid sponsorship combined with corruption and money laundering.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the PiS politician promised to use his influence, among others, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to allow Paweł C., rector of the Collegium Humanum, to open a branch of the university in Uzbekistan. In return, he would receive PLN 92,000. Bribe in PLN zloty.
The suspect, Emilia H., faced the same charges. According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, she acted jointly and in consultation with her husband.
The investigation conducted by the Central Anti-Corruption Office together with the Silesia department of the National Prosecutor’s Office concerns irregularities at the Collegium Humanum, which is now, after rebranding, called the Warsaw University of Business and Applied Sciences.
Diploma factory
Newsweek wrote about irregularities at the Collegium Humanum in 2022. This private university was founded in 2018 in Warsaw. It offered not only bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but also intensive courses that led to an MBA degree. Its graduates included: politicians, presidents and board members of state treasury companies, secret service officers and military commanders. The credibility of the documents issued by the Collegium Humanum was supposed to be ensured by, among others: foreign universities, however, as our investigation showed, did not have the authority to conduct higher education studies, and some of them are not listed in any university register.
Collegium Humanum will have branches not only in Rzeszów, Poznań and Wrocław by 2022, but also in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and even Uzbekistan.
Our insiders then stated that the key to understanding this extremely rapid expansion was MEP Ryszard Czarnecki, who had signed the entire project with his name and image almost from the beginning. He regularly appeared at the inauguration ceremonies of the academic year at the Collegium Humanum and at graduations. In the photos he was always next to Paweł Cz. There were even rumours that the rector and the MEP were related, but both denied this. They claimed it was just a similarity in names.
Ryszard Czarnecki has also been actively promoting the university worldwide. On 27 October 2021, the Collegium “as the first Polish university” opened a branch in Andijan, Uzbekistan. From then on, students would receive diplomas that are respected in the European Union. As the university boasted on its website, a PiS MEP also spoke at the ceremony.
