The Party

The Pirate of Prague

The episode details the audacious lifestyle of Viktor Kožený, known as the 'Pirante of Prague,' during a lavish 1997 Christmas party in Aspe

Key takeaways

• Viktor Kozyne hosted a $1 million+ Christmas party at his $20 million 'Peak House' in Aspen.
• The event featured high-end luxuries including Chateau Petrus and a performance by Natalie Cole.

Main topics

• Financial fraud and social engineering
• The lifestyle of Viktor Kožený

Notable quotes

The thing about bad guys is you often can't help but like them, in spite of yourself.

Conclusion

A gripping study on how extreme wealth and social prestige can be weap

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:08) Paradise Island, the Bahamas. Speaker 3 (0:11) Hello? Hello, Victor? Hello? Hello? Hi, I'm a journalist and I'm trying to find one of your neighbors and wanted to see if you could help me find him. It's a fellow named Victor Kajaney. He's got red hair. He's a white man, kind of round face and curly hair. Speaker 4 (0:36) This place looks like a down-at-the-heels motel. Two stories, peeling paint, doors off the hinges. It's not the Bahamas of your dreams. Yes, there's a pool out back, but you wouldn't want to swim in it. This is the last place you'd expect to find the man we're looking for. But all the leads point right here. Speaker 3 (1:02) Okay, you don't know anything about him. Okay, thank you very much. Have a great day. Speaker 2 (1:08) I've never seen him, actually. Is that right? Speaker 3 (1:10) Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:11) I don't know him. Speaker 3 (1:12) We're trying to find him. I'll show you the picture we have. Speaker 2 (1:14) I haven't Speaker 4 (1:14) seen him. Speaker 3 (1:16) The car that was identified back in 2015 as being driven by Victor is sitting right here in the parking lot. It's in pretty bad shape. Have you seen him by any chance? Speaker 5 (1:27) You don't ever see him, but you hear him. Oh, really? You hear people every night. Speaker 4 (1:32) You do? Having parties. Speaker 5 (1:35) They have quite a bit of arguing, too. There's people there, I don't know, four or five nights a week. But I've never seen him. I wouldn't recognize him if he walked by here. Speaker 3 (1:45) Well, we are thinking we might have found Victor where he lives. There's no doorbell to ring. There's no name on the door. There's no mailbox. This really does seem like somebody who does not want to be found. Speaker 4 (1:59) There's something really off here. It doesn't add up. Because this place, it's a wreck. And Victor, he was once seriously, seriously loaded. I'm talking millions and millions of dollars. And he had a plan. A cunning plan. A plan to get control of all the oil of an entire country. And I promise you, that was a lot of oil. So here's the question, and it's a good one. How does a guy like that end up in a place like this? This is The Pirate of Prague, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. I'm Joe Nocera. Chapter one, the party. Speaker 4 (3:54) The thing about bad guys is you often can't help but like them, in spite of yourself. And let's not mince words here. This is a story about a very bad guy. At least, if everything they say about him is true. This is a guy who came from nothing to having the very best of everything. Everything everyone else wants. Private jets, yachts, secluded islands, and suitcases bursting with cash. Other people's cash. The fellow in question was an oligarch. Maybe even the first oligarch. The oligarch who showed all the other oligarchs how to be an oligarch. Only, unlike the rest of them, this guy, you could imagine being friends with him. People liked him. I mean, they really liked him. He was a schmoozer, a charmer. And unlike those other oligarchs, this guy's not Russian. He's from the Czech Republic. The tabloids called him the Pirate of Prague. Speaker 2 (5:04) I was mesmerized. I was wildly attracted to him. I just thought I had never met anyone like him, which most people who've met him would also say. Speaker 6 (5:13) He goes to me, my name is Victor Cuzzini. I'm here at the Bayan Island. Like a mad genius, Speaker 5 (5:20) perhaps a bit twisted. Speaker 1 (5:23) It was one of those experiences you look back on and think, was I really there? Did I really do that? You know, did all of this really happen? Speaker 4 (5:32) This is the story of Victor Cuzzini. Speaker 3 (5:41) Hello, Victor? Speaker 4 (5:44) That guy knocking on the door? That's Peter Elkind, a journalist and a good friend of mine. Once upon a time, we worked for the same magazine. And I sent you around the Speaker 3 (5:57) globe on this one. You did. You did. I went to NASA on the Bahamas. I got to take a plane ride with Victor at the controls. That sounds kind of dangerous. It was interesting, to say the least. And I spent a lot of time with some of the wealthiest people on the planet. And I also got to travel to Azerbaijan, of all places. Speaker 4 (6:16) And you love this story. But I got to ask, I mean, was it because you got an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas? Speaker 3 (6:22) There was that. I didn't exactly spend time on the beach. But yes, I really, really love this story. So anyway, Speaker 4 (6:29) you wrote it. I edited it. We published it. But the tale... Hadn't really ended. Exactly right. Speaker 3 (6:37) And it was far from over. And I always wanted to return to it because a lot has happened since. Speaker 4 (6:42) All right. So we are back. So where do we start? Speaker 3 (6:47) Well, how about Christmas 1997 in Aspen, Colorado? Speaker 4 (6:55) Okay. So it's early evening, three days before Christmas. Aspen's she-she. Really she-she. The sort of place you buy a house when you've really made it. Actually, it's the sort of place where you can't buy a house unless you've really made it. Sure, there's skiing. But if you're in this tax bracket, who cares about the skiing? Anyway, it's 1997. Bill Clinton is president, and the Spice Girls are at number one with their hit song, Too Much. And in this town, everyone has too much. One guy in particular. The snow is falling. The festive lights sparkle. Everyone is off the slopes. It's apres ski time. And there's one party in particular that everyone's talking about. It's happening at one of Aspen's swankiest addresses. This place is posh. It is right up high on top of what the locals call Billionaire's Mountain. And the host? Yep, it's Victor. Just 34 years old, and he's got a sensational smile. Six feet plus, red hair, big Speaker 5 (8:10) grin, Speaker 4 (8:10) and Speaker 5 (8:11) a totally Speaker 6 (8:12) charming person. Very