Hungary’s investigators dug cash out of the forest at night. It took 12 treasury staff eight hours to count the US$20 million

Hungary’s new asset recovery office released footage on Friday that few governments ever publish: officers digging in the dark for money.

The National Asset Recovery and Protection Office said its investigators had found large amounts of cash buried in forests, hidden in farm buildings, warehouses and a home, and stored in a high-value safe in a secluded location. The searches this week ran across Budapest and Pest, Békés and Nógrád counties, and the cash went to the State Treasury that evening.

Finance Minister András Kármán said 12 treasury employees spent eight hours counting it. The total was 5.07 billion forints, 2.66 million euros and 1.26 million US dollars, together worth about US$20 million.

Whose money is it alleged to be?

The searches are part of a bribery investigation into Miklós Seszták, who ran the national development ministry under Orbán from 2014 to 2018 and has been detained since September.

Prosecutors suspect Seszták and former state asset manager Norbert Szivek of obtaining more than 11 billion forints, around US$33 million, in unlawful benefits through contracts linked to Volánbusz, the state bus company, including purchases of overpriced second-hand buses. Separate allegations involve kickbacks from government construction projects. Seszták denies wrongdoing, and no court has ruled on the allegations.

A billionaire businessman detained in the same Volánbusz investigation in September has been under house arrest since 16 October.

Why is this happening now?

Because Hungary changed government. Péter Magyar’s centre-right Tisza party ended Orbán’s 16 years in power at the April election, promising to repair relations with the European Union and to pursue corruption. The asset recovery office that ran these searches was set up for that purpose.

Since then, other former ministers have been detained in separate cases, and so has György Matolcsy, the former central bank governor, over the alleged misuse of assets held by a central bank foundation. He also denies wrongdoing.

Magyar wrote on Facebook that the find marked the end of what he called the “Fidesz-KDNP mafia”. Orbán has accused the new government of using investigations to drive him out of politics.

How has Orbán’s party responded?

With a noticeable change of tone. Fidesz had defended detained former officials as political victims, and its website still lists Seszták among five “political prisoners”, alongside Áron Orbán, the former prime minister’s younger brother.

After the find, Fidesz and its ally KDNP said elected officials swear to uphold the law and that the party “cannot associate itself” with anyone who breaks that oath. It added that it hoped the cash had nothing to do with Seszták.

Does the public care?

A Median survey published this week found 70 per cent of Hungarians considered investigating suspected corruption under Orbán, and holding those responsible to account, “very important”.

Why should anyone outside Hungary watch this?

For more than a decade Orbán’s Hungary was the model for leaders who wanted to stay inside the EU while weakening the checks on their own power, and Brussels held back billions in EU funding over rule-of-law and corruption concerns. What Hungary’s own investigators now find, and whether courts convict, will shape how the rest of Europe judges those years.