Hungarian authorities have recovered nearly $20 million in cash, including banknotes buried in forests and concealed in farm buildings, warehouses and other properties, as part of a bribery investigation involving Miklos Sesztak, a former minister in Viktor Orban’s government.
The recovery was announced late on Friday by the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, which said investigators had discovered large quantities of cash during searches at several locations. The money had been buried in forests, hidden in agricultural buildings and warehouses, concealed at a residential property and stored in a high-value safe at a secluded location.
Finance Minister Andras Karman said a team of 12 State Treasury employees spent eight hours counting the recovered money using banknote-counting machines.
The investigation is part of a broader anti-corruption campaign launched by Prime Minister Peter Magyar, who defeated Orban in an April election after 16 years of rule. Magyar has pledged to investigate allegations of corruption and repair Hungary’s strained relations with the European Union following years of disagreements under his predecessor.
The centre-right prime minister has named the campaign “Operation Purgatory”. A survey conducted by pollster Median and published by news website HVG this week found that 70% of respondents considered the anti-corruption drive “very important”.
Magyar described the recovered money as evidence of what he characterised as a “mafia” operating under Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party and its Christian Democrat allies during their time in government.
Sesztak, who served as development minister between 2014 and 2018, has denied wrongdoing. His lawyer, Gabor Papp, did not respond to a request for comment on the asset recovery office’s announcement. However, he told the local news website Telex that the seized money did not belong to his client and that the bribery investigation involved other suspects.
Sesztak remains a member of parliament’s Economic and Energy Affairs Committee and is also vice-chair of the Christian Democrats.
Fidesz said it hoped the former minister had no connection to the recovered money. In a statement published on Facebook, the party said it could not associate itself with anyone who failed to uphold the law and expressed confidence that the images released by the asset recovery office had no connection to Sesztak.
The investigation has also prompted calls within the former governing political alliance for Sesztak to relinquish his parliamentary mandate while attempting to clear his name.
Bence Retvari, parliamentary group leader of the Christian Democrats, said the former minister should step down from his mandate. He described the matter as an individual criminal case that should remain separate from the wider political organisation.
“Peter Magyar wants to use it to portray the entire right as a criminal organisation. We reject this in the strongest possible terms!” Retvari said in a Facebook statement.
The investigation involving Sesztak is among several corruption cases affecting former officials from Orban’s administration. Two other former government ministers and former central bank chief Gyorgy Matolcsy are under arrest in separate investigations involving graft allegations. All have denied wrongdoing.
Authorities have also detained Orban’s brother in a separate people-smuggling investigation, which the former prime minister has dismissed as an act of political revenge.
Political scientist Gabor Torok said the images of the recovered cash could have serious consequences for Fidesz. The party’s support fell to 16% of voters in November, approximately half its pre-election level, according to a Median survey.
