Investigation into former arms dealer discontinued. He was supposed to deliver ventilators during COVID pandemic

In April 2020, the Health Ministry, with the then chief Łukasz Szumowski and his deputy Janusz Cieszyński, signed a contract for a delivery of ventilators with the E&K company, represented by the arms dealer Andrzej Izdebski.

The ministry immediately sent an advance of approx. 35 million zlotys (160 million zlotys) to E&K's bank accounts.

Izdebski was supposed to deliver 1,241 ventilators but failed to do so.

The arms dealer left Poland without any troubles in late 2020, although he had delivered only 200 out of more than 1,200 ordered devices.

In mid-July 2022, tvn24.pl found out the prosecutor's office had information regarding Izdebski's death. His body had been found in the capital of Albania, Tirana.

The body was brought back to back to Poland and cremated at one of the funeral parlors in Łódź on July 4. Civic Coalition MPs Michał Szczerba and Dariusz Joński, who were following the arms dealer's case, said at the time that there had been "no police, no prosecutors, no special services, and also no relatives" during the cremation.

"Neither in Albania nor here in Łódź, where the body was cremated, there was no one who could have identify (the deceased - edit.)" - Joński said.

Joński and Szczerba also said that almost none of the purchased devices had been sent over to hospitals to help treat COVID patients.

In late-July 2022, "Gazeta Wyborcza" informed that Izdebski "had a company together with a former chief of Albanian military intelligence and was not hiding at all". "Although the arms dealer owed millions to the Polish state, after his death in Tirana, the Polish services did not contact the local prosecutor's office," the daily newspaper added.