BUDAPEST (The Thursday Times) — Hungarian investigators have seized cash worth about $19.5 million, some of it dug up from forests, in a bribery case against Miklós Seszták, who served as national development minister under former prime minister Viktor Orbán.
The National Asset Recovery and Protection Office (NVVH), an anti-corruption body set up by the new government, said it found the money during searches on Thursday and Friday in Budapest and three counties. It said cash had been buried in forests, hidden in farm buildings, warehouses, and a home, and kept in high-value safes in remote locations.
The office put the haul at 5,071,632,000 forints, €2,658,350, and $1,257,100. The money has been paid into an account of the Hungarian State Treasury, where, the government said, 12 employees spent eight hours counting it with five counting machines.
Seszták, who was minister from 2014 to 2018, is suspected of taking more than $37 million in bribes and kickbacks linked to vehicle purchases by the state bus company, including second-hand buses bought at inflated prices, and to state construction projects. He was taken into custody in late September.
The office released video showing investigators kneeling beside piles of bundled banknotes, and shovels breaking ground in a forest at night.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar, whose Tisza party ended Orbán’s 16 years in power with a landslide win in April after promising to investigate corruption, said the find “officially marks the end of the Fidesz-KDNP mafia,” referring to Orbán’s former governing coalition.
The seizure is the latest in a run of cases against figures from the Orbán era. Seszták, two other former ministers, and Orbán’s younger brother are in custody in separate cases. The brother was detained on Monday in an investigation into suspected human trafficking and influence peddling. Former central bank governor György Matolcsy is also in detention over the alleged misuse of a central bank foundation.
Orbán did not comment on the seizure. He has called the investigations into his inner circle political persecution.
