Hungary seizes 5,071,632,000 forints and €2,658,350 in Orbán-era minister probe

Hungary's National Asset Recovery and Protection Agency (NVVH) seized 5,071,632,000 forints ($14.5 million), €2,658,350 ($2.86 million) and $1,257,100 in physical cash during coordinated searches on 12 and 13 November — a haul of more than $18 million. Investigators found the money buried in forested areas, concealed inside agricultural buildings and storage warehouses, hidden within a residential dwelling and locked inside a heavy safe installed in a secret compartment.

The searches covered Budapest and the counties of Pest, Békés and Nógrád. The NVVH said the confiscated funds have been formally deposited into the Hungarian State Treasury. The operation forms part of an ongoing criminal probe involving Miklós Seszták, a former National Development Minister who served in the cabinet of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and is a sitting member of parliament.

The seizure marks the latest escalation in an anti-corruption campaign launched by Prime Minister Péter Magyar, whose pro-European conservative movement ended Orbán's 16-year rule following a landslide parliamentary election victory in April. Magyar took office pledging to investigate systemic state capture, alleged embezzlement and abuse of public office during the previous administration, establishing the NVVH with broad statutory powers to trace and recover misappropriated state assets.

On 9 November, Hungarian police took Orbán's brother, Áron Orbán, into custody in connection with a human trafficking and visa facilitation investigation conducted jointly by the National Bureau of Investigation (NNI) and the NVVH across Budapest and Pest County. Investigative journalists previously linked a company associated with Áron Orbán to an illicit scheme offering foreign nationals preferential access to Hungarian work visas in exchange for payments. Viktor Orbán denounced his brother's detention on Facebook as a "dirty game," claiming that he was the real political target of the new government.