DOKUMENT: Audit Jiřího Čunka - Family background and biography

Jiri Cunek was born on 22 February 1959 in Zlin in central Moravia.

Mr. Cunek’s education does not extend beyond high-school. Starting in 1974, he attended for three years a vocational school in the Moravian town of Napajedla. In 1977 he took a job as auto mechanic in Zlin and went to evening classes at a local high school training students for industrial middle-management jobs. Upon graduation in 1982, he took a position as safety technician with armaments company Zbrojovka Vsetin.¹ Zbrojovka manufactured machine guns, aircraft guns and and ammunitions.²

Mr. Cunek is married to Pavla Cunkova, nee Ulehlova. They have four daughters: Eva, Jana, Hana and Veronika. Ms. Cunek is a dentist and runs a private practice in a suburb of Vsetin.

Prior to Mr. Cunek’s entry into politics, the Cuneks appeared to live the life of a typical Czech middle class family. They lived in an apartment in a prefabricated housing complex in Vsetin and were saving up to build a family home.

Mr. Cunek’s compensation records show that between 1982 and 1994 the family’s income including social benefits was CZK 778,846, or about CZK 5,400 per month on average. The Cuneks started making significantly more money in the mid 1990s, when monthly income reached CZK 17,000.

Still, the broader Cunek family appears to have had larger assets. When Mr. Cunek’s father Josef died in a car accident in 2006, he left property appraised at CZK 3.7 million, including CZK 1.17 million in cash. Mr. Cunek’s cousin Jan Machu was a successful professional in Prague. He was employed by Sun Microsystems as general sales manager for Czech Republic and Slovakia. Czech IT industry professionals told Kroll that Mr. Machu could earn as much as CZK 200,000 in monthly income and upwards of CZK 2.4 million in annual bonus, in the 1990s.

Another cousin, Petr Kozacek, was the co-founder of Ruchstav Holding, an Opava-based investment group that held over three hundred million koruna of assets.

Kroll learned through interviews with Messrs. Cunek, Machu and Kozacek that Mr. Cunek’s business association with Mr. Machu and particularly Mr. Kozacek has brought him additional income not included in the compensation summary provided to Kroll by the state appointed auditor.