MagyarLeaks: Corrupt policemen covered criminal organisation

A network of companies specialised in employer’s contribution fraud has caused billions of forints damage to the state budget, a former member of a criminal organisation told atlatszo.hu. The person claims the police assisted to criminal activities and his claims can be confirmed by public company data. The whistle-blower has been on the run since 2012, he was arrested in September 2013 and a prosecution was started against him on grounds of embezzlement.

Police reported in September 2013 the arrest of 23 suspects in a country-wide crack-down dubbed one of the biggest crack-down operations of Hungary’s police. Police cracked down on a criminal organisation which embezzled some ten thousand people’s contributions. There is no information on whether this was the same case which had a former member on the run for more than a year trying to find a media outlet to publish his story.

However, a man whose name is Attila K. has contacted atlatszo.hu with a similar story, saying he was also a member of a similar criminal organisation. The man claimed he wanted to report a several billion forints worth employer’s contribution and tax fraud but he couldn’t contact Hungarian authorities fearing the revenge of policemen and customs officers allegedly involved in the case. According to his account, a network consisting of several companies has not been paying in employer’s contributions to 1700 workers and has been involved in fake invoicing.

Kapos.hu news site reported that on 13 September 2013 Attila K. was arrested, at the time of the arrest there were nine arrest warrants issued against him, he was wearing a wig and used  a forged Slovenian ID for identification.

In his testimony he described a scheme in which companies aimed to avoid paying taxes and employer’s contributions to legally employed workers. “When a company’s collected debt has reached 100 million forints, they sold it to a foreigner,” he wrote in an email to atlatszo.hu. The information Attila K. provided reveals that he had joined the criminal organisation a few years ago, and his relations with the leadership deteriorated in 2011. On his last workday he took out 62 million forints cash from a local bank’s branch, he says he didn’t steal the money but he has never revealed where the money went in the end.

Read the original Hungarian language article posted here on 22 October 2013.