Hungary recovers $20 million cash in probe of Orban minister

Hungarian authorities have recovered nearly $20 million in ​cash, some buried in forests or hidden in farm buildings and ​warehouses, in a bribery investigation into Miklos Sesztak, a minister ‌under ​former leader Viktor Orban. Prime Minister Peter Magyar ousted Orban after 16 years in power in an April election, pledging to mend ties with the European Union strained by years of disagreements under Orban, and to launch a sweeping investigation ‌into allegations of graft.

The clampdown is part of an anti-graft drive the centre-right Magyar has dubbed "Operation Purgatory", which 70% of respondents rated as "very important" in a survey by the pollster Median carried by news website HVG this week. "During searches, investigators found large amounts of cash buried in forests, hidden in farm buildings, warehouses and a residential property, and ‌stored in a high-value safe in a secluded location," the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office said late on Friday.

Finance Minister Andras Karman said it ‌took a dozen State Treasury workers eight hours using banknote counters to count the cash that had been retrieved. Magyar said the recovered cash signalled the end of what he described as a "mafia" led by Orban's right-wing Fidesz party and his Christian Democrat allies during Orban's 16-year rule.

Fidesz wrote in a Facebook post that it hoped Sesztak was not connected to the cash. "Since the change of regime, ⁠every lawmaker ​in Hungary has sworn an oath to ⁠abide by and enforce the law. Fidesz-KDNP (Christian Democrats) cannot associate itself with anyone who fails to do so. We trust that the images published by the NVVH (asset recovery office) have nothing ⁠to do with Miklos Sesztak," Fidesz wrote.

Sesztak — Orban's development minister from 2014 to 2018 — has denied wrongdoing. His lawyer, Gabor Papp, did not respond to a request for comment on the ​recovery office's statement. But he told local news website Telex the seized cash did not belong to Sesztak, a member of parliament's Economic and ⁠Energy Affairs Committee. He added that the bribery case also involved other suspects. FORMER MINISTER FACING CALL TO RELINQUISH HIS MANDATE

But Bence Retvari, parliamentary group leader of the Christian Democrats, said Sesztak, the party's vice ⁠chair, should ​relinquish his parliamentary mandate as he seeks to clear his name. "This is an individual criminal case, and the criminal proceedings must be kept strictly separate from our political community," Retvari said on Facebook.

"Peter Magyar wants to use it to portray the entire right as a criminal organisation. We reject this in the strongest possible ⁠terms!" In separate investigations, two former ministers from Orban's government and former central bank chief Gyorgy Matolcsy are under arrest over graft accusations. They have denied wrongdoing.

Authorities have ⁠also detained Orban's brother in a people-smuggling ⁠case that the former leader has dismissed as an act of political revenge. Gabor Torok, a political scientist, said the images of the cash were so vivid they likely spelled doom for Fidesz, whose support fell by half from its pre-election ‌level to 16% of voters ‌in November, a Median survey showed.

($1 = 330.82 forints, 0.9074 euros)