YESTERDAY a Hungarian court ordered the leader of the Liberal group in one of the districts of Budapest to be held for 30 days while an investigation is conducted into fraud charges. Charges against György Gál, who is chairman of the district’s economic committee, involve the fraudulent sale of land belonging to the municipality.
Gál is alleged to have accepted a €750,000 bribe for improperly steering eight properties to “selected” buyers.
Other suspects in the case founded companies to buy the properties from the local government and who then sold the companies and the buildings to an offshore company in Cyprus that had been set up to facilitate the deals. The buyers, mainly Irish investors, were then “found by” the offshore company.
According to reports, buyers had to pay both the original residents of the buildings, who were unlawfully forced to move out, and the owners of the offshore company.
