Hungary: Successful indictment in criminal case based on an OLAF recommendation

Based on the indictment of the Chief Public Prosecution Office of County Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg, the Nyíregyháza Court of Justice has convicted a woman and her two daughters in first instance who had enriched their family fortune with hundreds of millions of forints by submitting false applications.

According to the indictment, on the basis of the mother's idea, her daughters submitted an application to the regional branch of the Office for Agriculture and Rural Development for the construction of two cold storage houses in a small village in Szatmár in 2010. The two daughters participated in the project as self-employed persons and gave power of attorney to their mother, who acted as general contractor for all project-related tasks, using subcontractors.

Compared to the value of the invoices issued by the subcontractors, the mother's company invoiced her daughters for a significantly higher amount in order to increase the cost of the project significantly on paper, thus reducing their own financing obligation.

The business company run by the mother invoiced her daughters' sole proprietorships for more than HUF 700 million, twice the actual cost of HUF 346 million. The financial loss to the Hungarian and EU budgets caused by the family "business", and thus the enrichment of the family, amounted to more than HUF 300 million.

The Nyíregyháza Court of Justice made a non-final decision on the guilt of the three women on 29 February 2024. The court found the defendants guilty of the felony of budgetary fraud causing particularly large financial loss and of the misdemeanour of using forged private documents on a continuing basis. All three defendants were sentenced to suspended imprisonment, fined and ordered to pay compensation for the damage caused.

The Chief Public Prosecution Office has filed an appeal against the first instance verdict for aggravated sentences against all three defendants, with the aim of imposing a sentence of imprisonment to be carried out.

Read the original press release (in Hungarian)