The sale of the cafe in Kroměříž initially looked like a misunderstanding between the seller and the buyer. But the business dispute turned out to be another number of a “special recidivist”. An incurable con man has been ripping people off across the country for a quarter of a century.
“The gentleman seemed like an eccentric millionaire. He was satisfied with everything and did not negotiate the price at all. He said that he had invested in bitcoin in the past and now he has a lot of money,” describes cafe owner Martin Sedlář of his first meeting with Lukáš Ledn.
Sedlář and his partner Jiří Horváth were delighted to have found the ideal buyer for their cafe. The two men ran the business in the historic center of Kroměříž for five years, despite the initial vicissitudes, it earned them a decent amount of money, but eventually they ran out of energy and decided to sell.
Lukáš Leden claimed that he wanted to buy the cafe for his partner Hana “to fulfill her dream”. As proof of his solvency, he also presented a screenshot showing the value of bitcoins. Leden did not raise any suspicions even with the real estate agency that mediated the sale.
The new owner undertook to pay 2.5 million for the equipment and operation of the cafe. Hana’s partner formally signed up for it, but Lukáš Leden repeatedly claimed that he would send the money.
In May 2025, before they had any money in their account, Horváth and Sedlár transferred the establishment, including the employees, to new operators.
Lukáš Leden cheerfully made coffee and collected the profit, but he did not pay the purchase price. For example, he responded to the emergency by claiming that the bank had blocked his account due to anti-money laundering measures. Gradually, January came with new and new stories and promises. He even sent Sedlář and Horváth a screenshot via WhatsApp, which shows that the payment is waiting to be processed.
But in reality, no funding arrived.
Photo: Archive of Martin Sedlář / Seznam Zpravy
The picture shows Martin Sedlář and Jiří Horváth. They ran the cafe in Kroměříž for five years. During the sale, they ran into a fraudster.
Prison as a protection for society
The show In the Shadows managed to find out who the coffee shops from Kroměříž encountered: Lukáš Leden is a long-time fraudster who has been luring money from people for a quarter of a century using various techniques. This is evidenced not only by extracts from the enforcement register, but also by an abundance of documents from the courts and the police.
Over the past almost thirty years, he has left behind dozens of cheated people, including several ex-partners with whom he has children.
His criminal history begins in 1998 and stretches to the present. He has at least 16 convictions, mostly for property crimes.
Already in 2010, the District Court in Cheb wrote in a judgment that Leden “is able to earn money legally, but he constantly prefers to enrich himself at the expense of other people’s property by illegal means.”
Ledna’s case documents one of the big problems of Czech prisons: the high rate of recidivism, which exceeds 70 percent. The Czech justice system fails to break the chain of repeatedly committed (especially property) crimes.
The correction of the sinner misses the point, which in the case of Lukáš Ledno is recognized by the courts themselves. “For him, the punishment primarily fulfills the function of protecting society for as long as possible, as the previous multiple punishments clearly did not bring about the effect of correction and re-education,” the district court in Ostrava said in 2019.
Photo: Jaroslav Hroch, Seznam Správy
Lukáš Leden was punished at least sixteen times for property crimes.
The first major series of frauds that the program Ve stínu was able to find dates back to 2004, when Lukáš Ledn was 25 years old.
He responded to people who applied for a loan in classifieds newspapers. For example, one of the defrauded wanted to borrow 600,000 to buy a cottage. January took the commission, promised the money and never sent it.
“He assigned the amount to individual victims at random, he had no system for determining the amount of compensation,” reads the judgment of the District Court for Prague 2. In six months from August 2004 to January 2005, he defrauded 26 people and defrauded them of 120,000 crowns.
He ended up in prison for two years.
Special repeat offender
When he was released in May 2008, he almost immediately resumed the scams. He promised two people to mediate a loan and kept a commission of 14,000. He claimed to have a wealthy investor from Austria. When people wanted their money back, he used the excuse of a blocked account.
The district court in Cheb wrote: “The degree of dangerousness of the accused’s actions for society is higher than slight and is rather increased by the person of the accused, who is a multiple special recidivist.”
Judge Petr Holub further writes that even though Lukáš Leden has two children, one newly born, he has no choice but to impose a prison sentence.
“He was unsuccessfully tried by all available punishments, starting with conditional imprisonment and ending with unconditional imprisonment. However, nothing led him to reform. (…) Under this situation, only one type of punishment was considered, namely unconditional imprisonment. It is the most severe possible punishment, however, no other punishment can be imposed on the accused in view of the impairment of his person.”
What does Lukáš Leden say?
With Lukáš Ledn, the program Ve stínu managed to connect. In a half-hour interview, he described his view of the events surrounding the purchase of the Kroměříž coffee shop. You can read about this transaction at the end of the text, we analyze it in more detail in the podcast. January’s statement can be summed up simply: he denies any guilt.
We contacted him again after we were able to gather information about his criminal history. However, he insisted that the interview be off the record. It can only be said that he claimed that individual acts in the past happened differently, that he was protecting loved ones and that once he was punished, he could no longer break free from the cycle of criminal activity. He mentioned recidivism and the fact that it is impossible to survive in freedom after release.
We offered him the opportunity to reflect on his past and the conditions of the Czech prison with regard to how it is possible that he repeats the fraudulent behavior periodically shortly after he is released from prison. He did not accept this offer.
Sniper in Afghanistan
Until March 2017, he therefore spent most of his time behind bars. Shortly after he was released from prison, he met the caregiver Lenka and continued lying and cheating again.
Lence kept his punishment silent. He claimed that he had been with the Czech army in Afghanistan as a sniper for the past six years and subsequently treated a serious injury.
Again he spoke of Austria, specifically of his father, a surgeon. “His father is said to be very rich, he has a plane, several cars, his own security and flies a helicopter,” the indictment quotes Lenka’s mother.
Neighbors claimed that his father had set up a life insurance policy for him worth 290 million euros. In order to withdraw it early, he needs 50 thousand crowns. Lenka’s mother gave him the money.
About three weeks after Lenka gave birth to their daughter, Leden announced that she had a brain tumor and would be operated on at her father’s clinic in Austria.
Lenča’s family gave him 3,000 euros for treatment, which translates to about 75,000 crowns.
I’ve already locked a few guys in the trash
Even though Ledna and his new family were supported by his partner Lenka’s parents, Ledna decided to buy a house for 37 million crowns. And not just any.
“He told her it was very nice there, that there was a tennis court, a pond and a swimming pool in the house,” the indictment says.
He was able to convince both the seller and the real estate agent with his straightforward behavior that millions were indeed on the way. And he continued to stick to the story that he had been in Afghanistan for the last few years instead of prison.
When the money still did not arrive in the seller’s account, Leden began to claim that due to the large amount of money and anti-money laundering regulations, the bank blocked the payment and the account. He promised the home owner that the money would come, and despaired that he had no access to his finances. He begged him to lend him 150 thousand crowns.
When the creditor wanted the borrowed money back, Lukáš Leden became aggressive.
On WhatsApp, he wrote to him “let him remember his time in the army, that he was in the special forces, that he was a sniper, that he knows how to handle a knife, that he himself has already locked up several guys in a garbage can, that he will pay for it, that he will deal with him, that even if they should lock him up, then they have to let him go, and he has enough experience to do it smartly, that he knows where he lives, that he has the people to physically eliminate him or injured and that he had already torn someone apart in the past”.
When the owner of the property wanted to go to Lenka to discuss the whole situation with her, Lukáš Leden wrote to him: “Go to her and I’ll send guys over there to knock out your teeth.”
Rich dad’s end
Even though Leden invented more and more stories, the source of money from his partner Lenka’s family dried up. So the fraudster tried another way: he extorted 50,000 from the owners of the boarding house where he was staying for a few weeks, because they kicked him out of the apartment due to rent arrears. He owed another 160,000 at a branded car service. He continuously offered various goods on advertising portals. He requested payment in advance but never sent the goods.
What about the mission in Afghanistan and the rich Austrian father? As the authorities found out, Lukáš Leden never worked for the army in his life and the rich father never existed.
When the court added up everything for him in 2019, he walked away with his longest sentence to date – five years and eight months.
Photo: Vojtěch Janků, Seznam Zpravy
The interior of the cafe in Kroměříž, for which Lukáš Leden promised to pay. He didn’t pay.
Bitcoin millionaire
But as his fraud with the Kroměříž cafe shows, even several years in prison did not fix Lukáš Ledno.
He used a proven tactic at Sedlář with Horváth this spring: he put his current partner Hana in as a white horse in the transaction. And he succeeded. The real estate agency checked only her, not Lukáš Ledno and his rich criminal record. “We could not even check Mr. Ledno because he was not a party to the contractual relationship,” explained broker Michal Bartl.
He found the bitcoin story believable. “We routinely deal with cases where clients actually have cash from cryptocurrency investments. It’s not unusual lately,” he added.
With his direct demeanor, branded clothes, expensive electronics and often even a more luxurious brand of car, Leden was able to repeatedly deceive many people, including partners who lived with him for many months.
Photo: Archive of Martin Sedlář / Seznam Zpravy
Lukáš Leden and his partner Hana
Lazy police
Cafe owners Martin Sedlář and Jiří Horváth ran out of patience after three months. In August 2025, they went to the police to report suspected fraud.
But despite the criminal past of Lukáš Ledno, the police initially decided not to solve the case.
“Buyers Mrs. Hana F. and Mr. Lukáš Leden were questioned, when the facts of fraudulent behavior were not detected from the explanation given by the above-named. The police authority considers that the matter is a civil dispute, not a criminal offense,” the resolution reads.
It was only after Sedlář and Horváth’s complaint and the intervention of the public prosecutor that the police turned around and started solving the latest case of Lukáš Ledno.
And how does January himself react to the events surrounding the Kroměříž cafe? In his own way…
When the original owners described their view of the “stolen cafe” on Facebook, he became aggressive. For example, he wrote to Jiří Horváth:
“You better find a woman, but who would want you. Poor thing. People like you should be thrown in the gas chamber like Hitler did, the world would be more interesting!”
He left his partner Hana F. Lukáš Leden. He left behind damage exceeding three million crowns. For a cafe, a loan, for wages for female cafe employees. Hana F has debts written all over her.
It wasn’t until the police interrogation that she found out who Lukáš Leden actually was. The show In the Shadows also approached her with an interview offer. She refused.
“The whole situation has crushed me and I am not at all mentally well. I could say something that would harm someone close to me or myself. Believe me, I am very sorry for the whole situation and what happened was never my intention. I will not tell you anything more about it,” she wrote.
- What contributed to the fact that Martin Sedlář and Jiří Horváth believed in Lukáš Ledno?
- What does communication with a fraudulent recidivist look like? What techniques does he use?
- How to defend yourself? And is it possible at all?
To find out the answers to these questions, listen to the latest episode of the investigative podcast In the Shadows. You can find it at the beginning of the article, on the Podcasty.cz website, or in all podcast applications.
Investigative show In the Shadows
Photo: List of News
Members of Jiří Kubík’s team (center) are Vojtěch Janků, Iva Pacnerová, Jana Mičová and Jaroslav Hroch (from left).
Cases and stories from you. Jiří Kubík’s investigative and reporting team brings them to light from places where the media usually cannot see. New episode every Sunday on Seznam Správách. You can find an archive of parts on our website.
Editing, sound design: David Kaiser
Send us your ideas or comments by e-mail: vestinu@sz.cz.
