Banknotes buried in forests and hidden in barns took 12 treasury staff eight hours to count as the new government presses its anti-graft drive.
LAHORE: Hungarian authorities have recovered nearly $20 million in cash, some of it buried in forests and hidden in farm buildings, in a bribery investigation into a former minister in Viktor Orban’s government, Reuters reported.
The haul, linked to the probe of Miklos Sesztak, who served as development minister from 2014 to 2018, is the most vivid result so far of the anti-corruption campaign launched by Prime Minister Peter Magyar after he ended Orban’s 16 years in power in April’s election.
Eight hours to count
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.
Finance Minister Andras Karman said the money amounted to 5.07 billion forints ($15.33 million), 2.66 million euros ($2.93 million) and $1.26 million. A dozen State Treasury employees needed eight hours and five counting machines to tally it. The cash has been deposited with the treasury.
Sesztak has denied wrongdoing. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment on the recovery, according to Reuters.
‘Operation Purgatory’
Magyar calls his drive “Operation Purgatory” and said the find marked the end of a “mafia” run by Orban’s Fidesz party and its Christian Democrat allies.
Two former Orban-era ministers and former central bank governor Gyorgy Matolcsy are under arrest in separate graft cases, and all deny the accusations. Orban’s brother has been detained in a people-smuggling case that the former premier dismissed as “political revenge”.
The campaign is popular. A Median poll found 70% of Hungarians consider it very important, while support for Fidesz has halved to 16% of voters since before the election. Political scientist Gabor Torok said the images of stacked banknotes probably spelled doom for the party.
Magyar has also pledged to repair relations with the European Union, which were strained for years under Orban.
A familiar debate for Pakistan
The pictures from Hungary will resonate in Pakistan, where accountability drives have often been judged less by arrests than by how much money is actually returned to the exchequer.
Two features of the Hungarian case stand out. A dedicated asset recovery office traced and secured the cash, and the amount was counted, announced and banked within days rather than left in dispute for years. Pakistan’s own efforts, from NAB inquiries into municipal graft to Punjab’s anti-corruption helpline, face the same test of turning cases into recoveries. The Hungarian story also carries a caution that Pakistanis know well. Orban’s camp calls the cases revenge, and the campaign’s credibility will rest on convictions in open court, not on photographs of cash.
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