Arrest made by anti-corruption body set up to investigate alleged graft during former PM’s 16-year rule
Hungarian authorities have detained a brother of Viktor Orbán as part of an investigation into people-smuggling, the prime minister, Péter Magyar, has said.
The Hungarian anti-graft body, the national asset protection and recovery office, said in a statement that a joint operation with police had led to the arrests of four people and searches of homes in Budapest and Pest county.
While the statement did not name the three men and one woman who had been detained, Magyar linked one of the arrests to the former prime minister.
“Three ex-ministers of Orbán are already in custody,” Magyar said in Berlin, where he gave a speech on Monday evening. “Already his brother today went to custody,” he added, referring to the former leader’s sibling Aron Orbán, 49.
In April, Magyar won a landslide election victory, ousting Orbán after 16 years in power during which the country slumped in rankings to become the most corrupt in the EU. In the leadup to the vote, Magyar crisscrossed Hungary vowing to investigate any allegations of corruption and abuses of office that had taken place during his rival’s rule.
On Monday as news broke of his brother’s arrest, Viktor Orbán accused officials of carrying out a “political witch-hunt”, in a post on social media. “The aim of this dirty political game is to eliminate opponents and establish a one-party state. I am the real target. My younger brother is simply being used to get to me,” said Orbán, who remains president of his rightwing nationalist Fidesz party.
Shortly after taking power in May, Magyar set up the national asset protection and recovery office, an independent body with a mandate to uncover any past abuses of public funds and prevent future violations. He described the office as a central plank of a wider anti-graft campaign that he called “Operation Purgatory”.
Magyar has alleged that corruption, including the misuse of public funds, may have cost Hungarians as much as 10% of the country’s gross domestic product in recent years. Orbán has denied all allegations of wrongdoing.
Police said in a statement on Monday that the four people detained were suspected of helping Vietnamese citizens reach western Europe for several months in 2024. The timeline suggests the alleged activities took place while Orbán was still in office.
The perpetrators were accused of assisting more than 100 Vietnamese citizens in obtaining visas at Hungary’s foreign missions in Vietnam, in exchange for a recruitment fee which they then shared, the authorities said.
The four detained are suspected “of human smuggling committed as part of a criminal conspiracy for the purpose of financial gain”, police added.
One of the suspects is alleged to have engaged in influence peddling during the process of acquiring visas.
The arrest is the latest in a series of high-profile police actions against former officials or other individuals linked to the former prime minister.
In the months since Orbán lost power, three former ministers from his government have been taken into custody over graft accusations in separate cases, including the former central bank governor György Matolcsy. All have denied any wrongdoing.
With contributions from Reuters and Associated Press
