On 17 July 2016, I published on the website of the LEX NOSTRA Foundation an article entitled "The African Sorcerer", in which I described the operational scheme employed on African markets by Witold Karczewski, then (and still) Vice-President of the private trading company Contractus, as well as Vice-President of the National Chamber of Commerce.
The case, still the subject of prosecutorial scrutiny, opened a window onto a broader and more sensitive issue: how a Polish corporate figure with public positions came to move in the same circles as senior Belarusian officials and businessmen active in Africa.
The reporting and records presented here draw on official case files, court proceedings, border‑crossing data, corporate and land registries, and prior investigations by Belarusian and international media. Karczewski and other individuals named in this text were allowed to comment on the allegations and associations described; their responses, where provided, are summarized in the relevant sections.
Origins Of A Legal Dispute
On 22 September 2015, the governments of Poland and Kenya signed an agreement under which Poland extended a loan of approximately 100 million United States dollars to finance agricultural modernization projects in Kenya. A Polish private company owned by Witold Karczewski subsequently won a public tender to supply agricultural equipment to Kenya, funded by this facility. The funds involved were public monies originating in part from international financial institutions, including the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank.
Poland is a party to the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, which obliges signatory states to criminalize the bribery of foreign public officials and to impose criminal penalties by a court. The convention defines the offence as the intentional offering, promising, or giving of any undue advantage to a foreign public official, directly or through intermediaries, to obtain or retain business, or to obtain or retain any other improper advantage in the conduct of international business.
Acting on behalf of the LEX NOSTRA Foundation, I submitted an official notification to the Polish authorities alleging that acts constituting such an offence had occurred in connection with the Kenyan tender and implicating Witold Karczewski. Shortly before a key agreement triggering disbursement to the company was due to be signed, I also emailed the Ministry of Finance; according to ministry documentation, the contract was not signed as a result.
Following the notification, the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Białystok initiated proceedings under case reference RP I Ds. 50.2016, charging Karczewski with alleged corruption in the Kenyan project. As of this writing, the investigation remains ongoing, and no final court judgment has been issued. Karczewski has the right to be presumed innocent. Through his representatives, he has denied any wrongdoing, insisting that his company obtained and executed the contract in accordance with applicable law and tender procedures.
Travel Patterns And Belarusian Connections
Beyond the Kenyan file, border and travel records reviewed for this article show that between 2004 and 2020, Witold Karczewski crossed the Polish‑Belarusian border 883 times, an average of roughly 55 crossings per year. The frequency and regularity of those trips suggest sustained professional engagement in Belarus, well beyond occasional business travel. According to individuals familiar with the trips, who requested anonymity for security reasons, Karczewski's visits included both car journeys and flights on private or chartered aircraft, including to Minsk‑2 Airport.
One set of journeys stands out in the records. Flight documentation indicates that on 10 May 2011, a private Airbus A319 Corporate Jet, registered in Malta as 9H‑ARK under flight number MLM 021, departed Minsk for Ghana with a passenger list that included several senior Belarusian officials and business figures. Among them was Viktor Sheiman, a longtime ally of Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko who has held posts including secretary of the Security Council, prosecutor general, and head of the Presidential Property Management Department. Sheiman has been under European Union and United States sanctions for alleged human rights abuses and involvement in the disappearance of political opponents in the early 2000s.
Also on board was Russian businessman Oleg Burlakov, a billionaire whose interests included energy and construction, along with other Belarusian officials travelling on diplomatic and service passports. According to Belarusian media and cross‑border corporate records, Sheiman has played a key role in overseeing Belarusian economic projects in Africa and Latin America, notably in mining sectors in Zimbabwe and other countries. Investigations by outlets such as the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Belarusian Investigative Center have linked Sheiman and his associates, including businessman Alexander Zingman, to gold‑mining ventures in Zimbabwe and to offshore structures that interface with state‑owned African mining firms.
Travel records show that Witold Karczewski was a member of this high‑level delegation, sharing the aircraft with Sheiman, Burlakov, and Belarusian officials. A second flight from Minsk to Ghana in mid‑May 2011 carried a nearly identical passenger list, again including Karczewski. The journeys are described in the flight paperwork as "official," and Belarusian media at the time reported on Belarusian efforts to secure raw‑materials projects and other economic agreements in parts of Africa.
These records, by themselves, do not prove unlawful activity. However, they place a Polish businessman who later won a major state‑backed export contract in Kenya, and who went on to hold senior roles in Polish business organizations, in the inner circle of Belarusian figures now sanctioned for human rights abuses and accused of using African projects to advance the interests of President Lukashenko's regime. Karczewski has not been sanctioned, and Western governments have not accused him of violating international sanctions regimes. Through intermediaries, he has maintained that his work in Belarus and Africa has been strictly commercial and compliant with both Polish and international law.
Public Roles In Poland
Domestically, Karczewski has combined his business activities with visible roles in Polish economic organizations. At the time of the Kenyan tender, he served as vice president of the privately owned trading company Contractus and vice president of the National Chamber of Commerce, a prominent business association. In north‑eastern Poland, he has also chaired the Podlaskie Economic Forum, a regional platform bringing together entrepreneurs, local officials, and professional groups.
These positions have given him access to senior political figures. On 28 March 2025, for example, he shared the presidium table at a meeting in Białystok with Szymon Hołownia, then marshal of the Sejm and one of Poland's highest‑ranking state officials. Video from the event shows Hołownia making a light‑hearted remark suggesting that a governing coalition would do better to replace him with Karczewski rather than another political figure. After media criticism, Hołownia said that he had not been warned by the security services about Karczewski's background and described his comments as a joke.
Opposition politicians and some commentators argued that the episode illustrated how Polish elites can become entangled, knowingly or not, with businessmen embedded in foreign networks of interest. Supporters of Hołownia and Karczewski, however, characterized the criticism as politically motivated and emphasized that neither man is accused of espionage or of violating sanctions, and that no court has found them guilty of any crime related to Belarus or Africa.
Property Holdings And Open Questions
Land and mortgage registers show that Witold Karczewski and members of his immediate family own or have owned multiple properties in north‑eastern Poland. Among them are two substantial undeveloped plots in the village of Molwity (Bezledy) in the Warmian‑Masurian Voivodeship, together covering approximately 274 hectares and located near Poland's border with the Russian Federation. The properties are legally registered and taxed in Poland, and there is no official allegation that they are being used unlawfully.
Security experts interviewed for this article, including former Polish officials familiar with border‑region planning, note that large holdings near strategic frontiers can raise questions if they are owned by individuals with extensive ties to states seen as hostile or adversarial. However, they also caution against drawing firm conclusions without concrete evidence of misuse and stress that ordinary commercial or personal considerations drive many such acquisitions. Karczewski, through intermediaries, has said that his family's land purchases reflect long‑term investment and private recreation plans and are unrelated to his foreign business activities.
In another case, land registry and notarial documents show that Karczewski acquired a small plot with an old summer cottage in the Podlaskie Voivodeship from attorney Urszula Zajko, a lawyer specializing in family and divorce law. People familiar with the transaction describe the price as low relative to local market values, but neither party has alleged wrongdoing, and the sale complied with formal legal requirements. Legal practitioners contacted for this story note that intra‑regional real‑estate pricing can vary significantly and that low valuations alone are rarely sufficient to infer improper motives.
Media Disputes And Defamation Claims
The network of relationships around Karczewski has also overlapped with Polish political and media disputes. During hearings of a parliamentary committee into a so‑called visa scandal, opposition member of parliament Marek Sowa devoted much of his allotted time to criticizing me personally, describing me as a Belarusian and Russian agent and implying criminal involvement. Sowa has said his comments were based on an article about me by journalist Leszek Lech Szymowski and on a book chapter by author Tomasz Piątek.
I have rejected those characterizations as false and defamatory and have sought to lift Sowa's parliamentary immunity so that a court can consider the statements. Defamation manuals and media‑law guidance emphasize that repeating potentially defamatory allegations made by others does not automatically shield speakers or publishers from liability, particularly where the claims concern alleged criminal conduct and are not based on official findings. Sowa has argued that his remarks were part of a legitimate political debate and relied on previously published sources; as of publication, no final ruling has been issued on the immunity request, and he has not been ordered to retract his comments.
Separately, I have been informed that journalist Małgorzata Tomczak is preparing an article that seeks to link me and the LEX NOSTRA Foundation to abuses involving religious organizations in Poland, relying in part on documents allegedly supplied by an individual identified here as Marcin O. I consider those documents to be forgeries and have encountered similar materials from other sources, but at this stage the claims remain untested in court. Tomczak has not publicly commented in detail on the planned article; media ethics guidelines generally urge reporters working with controversial or potentially falsified documents to verify them with multiple sources before publication.
A Continuing Story
Taken together, the Kenyan tender case, Karczewski's travel in the company of senior Belarusian officials active in Africa, his domestic public roles, and the swirl of political and media disputes around these issues highlight the complexities facing states and institutions that seek to balance open commerce with national‑security and governance concerns. They also illustrate the legal and ethical risks for journalists and public figures who report on or comment on powerful individuals, particularly in a polarized political environment and amid contested narratives.
Further developments in the Białystok prosecutorial proceedings, any action by foreign sanctions authorities, or new documentary evidence from Belarusian and African sources may clarify the nature and extent of Karczewski's role in these cross‑border networks. Until then, much remains a matter of public interest but unresolved fact, underscoring the need for cautious, well‑sourced reporting and for courts, regulators, and the public to scrutinize both business dealings and the information that surfaces about them.
Director of the LEX NOSTRA Foundation
