Nearly $20M found in Hungary's forests, buildings amid corruption probe

Hungarian investigators have recovered nearly $19.5 million in cash during searches linked to a corruption inquiry into officials from former Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government. The newly established National Asset Recovery and Protection Office searched locations in Budapest and three other areas on November 12 and 13. It found Hungarian forints, euros and US dollars in farm buildings, warehouses and a home, inside a high-value safe at a secluded site, and buried in forests. Officers filmed digging up cash after dark; the money was transferred to the state treasury. Twelve treasury employees reportedly spent eight hours counting it.

The inquiry centers on Miklos Sesztak, development minister from 2014 to 2018, who is suspected of taking more than $37.2 million in bribes and kickbacks connected to overpriced used-bus purchases by a state transport company and government construction projects. Detained in September, Sesztak denies wrongdoing. Prime Minister Peter Magyar, whose Tisza party ended Orban’s 16-year rule in April, presented the recovery as evidence that the former governing alliance’s corruption was being dismantled. Orban says the investigations are intended to drive him from politics. Separate cases have also led to arrests of former ministers and former central bank governor Gyorgy Matolcsy, who denies allegations over public assets. A recent poll found that 70 percent of respondents considered accountability for suspected corruption under Orban very important.