Hungarian authorities said on Friday that they had recovered about $19.5 million in hidden cash, some of it buried underground, as part of an investigation into a former minister who served under former prime minister Viktor Orbán, the Associated Press reported from Budapest.

Source: Associated Press, Nov 13, 2026

The National Asset Recovery and Protection Office (NVVH) said it discovered "large quantities of cash buried in forests, concealed in agricultural buildings, warehouses and a residential property, and stored in a high-value safe in a hidden location," in a statement issued on Friday. The agency searched several locations on Thursday and Friday as part of criminal proceedings against Miklós Seszták.

Source: The Guardian, Nov 13, 2026

The total found over the two days was 5,071,632,000 Hungarian forints, €2,658,350 and US $1,257,100, the NVVH said, bringing the combined value to $19.5 million — yaani, roughly ₹174 crore in Indian terms. The agency said its staff deposited the cash into the Hungarian State Treasury's account, and Finance Minister András Kármán said on Facebook that 12 Treasury employees spent eight hours counting the money using five counting machines.

The case against Seszták

Seszták, Hungary's minister of national development between 2014 and 2018, is accused of taking bribes in a scheme involving the state transport company purchasing secondhand buses at inflated prices. The accusation is an allegation in ongoing criminal proceedings — it has not been proven in court, and no response from Seszták to Friday's seizure was reported in the accounts published by AP or The Guardian.

The searches are the latest step in a widening accountability drive. Prime Minister Péter Magyar won a landslide election victory in April, ending Orbán's 16 years in power after promising to investigate alleged corruption and abuse of office during his rival's rule. The NVVH is an anti-graft body with sweeping powers established as part of that drive. Seszták, two other Orbán-era ministers and the former premier's brother have been taken into custody in different cases as graft inquiries gathered pace in recent weeks, The Guardian reported.

The case had already been building before this week's searches: Hungary's parliament earlier lifted the immunity of Seszták and other figures so prosecutors could pursue their investigations, and Hungarian court proceedings in October heard reports that Seszták had kept billions of forints in cash at home, where empty safes were later found. Friday's seizure is the first time investigators have publicly reported recovering a named total of hidden cash in the case.

Magyar hailed the seizure as a potential turning point, saying: "This officially marks the end of the Fidesz-KDNP mafia!" — a reference to Orbán's former governing coalition. Orbán did not react to the latest development on Friday; he had previously denounced the probes targeting his inner circle as "political persecution" aimed at imprisoning him, The Guardian reported.

What is solid

  • The NVVH, Hungary's National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, said its searches on Thursday and Friday found cash totalling 5,071,632,000 forints, €2,658,350 and $1,257,100 — a combined $19.5 million — buried in forests and hidden in agricultural buildings, warehouses, a residential property and a safe.
  • The agency said the cash was deposited into the Hungarian State Treasury's account.

What is only claimed

  • The claim that Seszták took bribes in a state bus procurement scheme is a prosecution allegation in ongoing criminal proceedings; it has not been proven in court.
What happens next

The criminal proceedings against Seszták continue, and the seized cash now sits in the State Treasury's account while investigators pursue the case. Whether prosecutors bring the bribery allegation to trial — and whether more hidden assets are found — has not been announced.