BUDAPEST, Hungary — Investigators found over 5 billion forints in cash, along with euros and dollars, buried in forests and hidden in buildings in the bribery probe of former minister Miklós Seszták, Hungarian authorities said Friday.
In a statement to the national news agency MTI, the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, known as NVVH, put the two-day total at 5,071,632,000 forints, 2,658,350 euros and 1,257,100 dollars. Agency staff deposited the money with the Hungarian State Treasury on Friday.
The searches took place Nov. 12 and 13 at several sites in Budapest and in Pest, Békés and Nógrád counties. Cash turned up buried in forests, tucked away in farm and warehouse buildings and a residential property, and locked in a high-value safe at a hidden location.
Finance Minister András Kármán wrote on Facebook that 12 treasury employees spent eight hours counting the money with five machines after it arrived.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar posted his own reaction Friday evening. “With this, the Fidesz-KDNP mafia is officially over!” he wrote, putting the buried and otherwise hidden cash at more than 6 billion forints.
The NVVH credited support from the National Bureau of Investigation’s criminal technical department and the Rapid Response Police. It also thanked the National Tax and Customs Administration and the treasury for their cooperation.
What prosecutors allege
Seszták, a member of parliament who served as national development minister, is at the center of a bribery case tied to passenger transport services and bus purchases involving Volánbusz Zrt. The Central Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Investigation is leading the inquiry.
Prosecutors suspect Seszták and the chief executive of Hungarian National Asset Management Inc., or MNV Zrt., took more than 11 billion forints in unlawful benefits from 2015 to 2018. That money allegedly came through an intermediary from a representative of companies with Volánbusz contracts.
Prosecutors also allege that a construction group’s representative offered to send 10% of the contractor fee on each project back to the politician, again through an intermediary, in exchange for hoped-for state work. The group won several high-priority state projects between 2015 and 2018 and passed Seszták more than 1 billion forints, according to prosecutors.
He is further suspected of receiving about 270 million forints from a company representative with an interest in swimming pool and gymnasium projects tendered by the National Sports Centers.
According to prosecutors, the conduct appears to amount to seven counts of accepting bribes as a senior official abusing his position. It could also amount to six counts of accepting bribes as an accessory, by a person authorized to act independently. Prosecutors said both sets of offenses were committed in criminal association and on a commercial basis.
Arrest and surveillance dispute
The NVVH took over the case Sept. 28, the same day Parliament suspended Seszták’s immunity. An investigating judge at the Buda Central District Court ordered his arrest two days later.
On Oct. 6, the KDNP demanded an immediate inquiry by Parliament’s national security committee, arguing that a lawmaker with immunity cannot be placed under surveillance. Prosecutors acknowledged the next day that they had used covert surveillance on Seszták that needed no judicial or prosecutorial approval, but said it had a legal basis.
On Oct. 28, the investigating judge extended Seszták’s arrest until Jan. 30. His defense had asked for his release or, failing that, supervision confined to a property, along with 300 million forints in bail, the Budapest-Capital Regional Court said that day.
The court said it had found not only a risk of interference with evidence but proof that it had happened. In a search of Seszták’s home, investigators found empty safes that, according to available information, had held 9 billion forints in cash. He may have hidden the money before he was questioned, the court said.