The Guardian: Orban's Associates Are Pulling Their Assets Out Of Hungary

Magyar's victory came as a shock to some oligarchs.

On the banks of the Danube, the news of the end of the Viktor Orbán era sparked hours of celebration. Joy swept across Hungary, with people hugging and greeting each other with handshakes. For some, however, the crushing defeat was cause for a desperate struggle.

Sources Guardian, private jets loaded with the spoils of those whose fortunes have increased significantly during Orban's 16 years in power are steadily flying out of Vienna, while others are rushing to invest their assets abroad.

This is just a small part of the turmoil engulfing Hungary, which is preparing to turn the page on Orban's rule. Since he came to power in 2010, a small circle of associates linked to the leader and his Fidesz party have amassed vast fortunes, thanks in part to expanded control over the country's economy and EU-funded public infrastructure contracts.

After the election, the newspaper learned of three members of that inner circle who began moving their assets abroad. Two sources in the Fidesz party said wealth was being moved to Middle Eastern countries - Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE - while others were targeting Australia and Singapore.

Peter Magyar, whose opposition Tisa party won a convincing victory this month, sounded the alarm, accusing Fidesz-linked individuals of trying to hide their wealth from accountability before his government takes power in early May.

"Oligarchs linked to Orban are transferring tens of billions of forints to the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Uruguay and other distant countries," Magyar said on social media on Saturday. He called on the chief prosecutor, police chief and head of the tax service to "apprehend the criminals" and "not allow them to flee" to countries where extradition is unlikely.

Magyar said among those expected to leave the country would be the family of Lorinc Mesaros, one of Orban's closest friends whose rise from gas fitter to Hungary's richest man was partly due to public procurement contracts. Mesaros' company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"I have also been informed that several oligarch families have already left the country," Magyar added. - Several influential oligarch families have reportedly already taken their children out of school and are organizing their departure with the help of trusted security officials."

The drive to move wealth abroad was first reported by independent journalists in Hungary, including investigative publication Vsquare, which said key figures linked to Orban were seeking to protect their assets before the Hungarian government could freeze, confiscate or nationalize them, and news website 444.hu, which claimed in March that key figures were already moving assets to Dubai.

Their efforts could be hampered by numerous bureaucrats and law enforcement officials with partial knowledge of everything that happened during Orban's rule, "setting the stage for a multi-year effort to recover allegedly stolen state assets and arrest those who committed financial crimes."

After the election, Magyar repeatedly said his government would work to root out the corruption and cronyism that he believes characterized the years of Fid party rule "Hungary is in distress in every respect. It has been plundered, robbed, betrayed, gotten into debt and ruined," Magyar told reporters the day after the election. "We have become the poorest and most corrupt country in the EU."

The new leader has repeatedly claimed that potentially compromising documents were destroyed in the final weeks of Orban's rule. "We are receiving more and more reports of large-scale destruction of documents from various ministries, subordinate institutions and companies close to the Fidesz party," he wrote on social media earlier this month.

The outgoing foreign minister, Peter Szijjártó, whose ministry has been accused of destroying confidential documents among other things, called the allegations "absurd" and "outrageous" in a statement to Hungarian online publication Telex. The ministry said it "only destroyed previously printed, redundant paper versions of documents that were stored electronically."

The Foreign Ministry and the office of Orban, who has long denied allegations of corruption and wrongdoing, did not respond to requests for comment.

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