Hungarian investigators have recovered about $19.5 million in cash — some of it dug out of forest floors after dark — in a bribery investigation into a minister who served under former prime minister Viktor Orban.
The National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, an agency created to investigate suspected misuse of public money, said in a statement late on Friday that searches were carried out on 12 and 13 November in Budapest and three other parts of the country, Al Jazeera reported.
Officers found Hungarian forints, euros and US dollars in farm buildings, warehouses, a private home and what the agency described as “a high-value safe in a secluded location”, as well as buried underground in forests. The agency released footage of investigators digging outdoors at night and counting stacked notes. The money was subsequently deposited with the state treasury; Finance Minister Andras Karman said on Facebook that twelve treasury employees spent eight hours counting it.
The case
The searches form part of an investigation into Miklos Sesztak, Hungary’s development minister from 2014 to 2018. He is suspected of receiving more than $37.2 million in bribes and kickbacks linked to overpriced second-hand bus purchases by a state transport company and to government construction projects.
Sesztak was detained in September and denies wrongdoing. Hiru News, which carried the story in Sinhala attributing it to Reuters, reports the recovery and the search locations but does not mention his detention, the scale of the bribery allegation or his denial.
The political setting
Prime Minister Peter Magyar, whose centre-right, pro-European Tisza party ended Orban’s sixteen years in power at April’s election, said on Facebook that the recovery marked the end of what he called the “Fidesz-KDNP mafia” — a reference to Orban’s Fidesz party and its smaller Christian Democratic governing ally.
Orban has previously accused the new government of using the investigations to drive him out of politics. Other former ministers have been arrested in separate cases, as has Gyorgy Matolcsy, the former central bank governor, over the alleged misuse of public assets held by a central bank foundation. Matolcsy also denies wrongdoing.
A survey published this week by the Hungarian news site HVG, conducted by the pollster Median, found 70% of respondents considered investigating suspected corruption under Orban and holding those responsible to account very important.
Figures to treat with care
Al Jazeera’s headline rounds the recovery to “nearly $20m” while its text gives $19.5 million, and an accompanying video is labelled $18 million. Hiru gives “close to US$20 million”. The $19.5 million figure from the body text is used here.
Not reported
Neither filing states how the agency identified the search locations, whether the recovered cash has been formally linked to the alleged bribes, or when Sesztak is next due in court.
