Prague, July 26 (CTK) – The Czech police, most often the National Anti-drug Centre (NPC), used wiretapping in 6,978 cases last year, which was 550 fewer than in 2014, according to a police wiretapping analysis for 2015 released to CTK.
In more than one-third of the cases, detectives wiretapped suspects to uncover organised criminal groups.
The NPC wiretapped 1,167 phone lines and 750 people last year.
This technology was also frequently applied by the criminal police that wiretapped 964 lines and 607 people and the organised crime squad (UOOZ), wiretapping 812 lines and 587 people in 2015.
Last year, the police were investigating 130,939 open cases and they needed to apply wiretapping in 1,127 cases or 1.3 percent. More than a half of them were drug crimes, followed by violent crimes, mainly robbery and blackmail.
The police can use wiretapping only on the basis of a state attorney’s proposal approved by a court.
In the past 12 years, the police have most often wiretapped suspects in 2004 (9,610 cases), followed by 2006 and 2015 (over 7,500 cases in each of the years).
On the contrary the lowest figure was in 2008 and 2009 when the police wiretapped suspects only in under 5,000 cases.
Crime rate decreased in the Czech Republic year-on-year by 14.2 percent to 247,628 criminal offences last year. It has dropped in two years in a row. The police prosecuted 101,883 people in 2015.
