Hungary recovers millions cash in probe of minister

Detailed summary

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar's sweeping investigation into graft allegations against his predecessors has dug up millions.

Hungarian authorities have recovered millions 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 per cent 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.

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