Officials from EU anti-fraud office were allegedly followed, wiretapped and had their laptops hacked by Hungary’s intelligence agency.
Hungary’s intelligence agency spied on EU officials visiting the country, searching their hotel rooms and recording their phone conversations, according to a bombshell report.
A joint investigation by Direkt36 and De Tijd found Hungary’s Information Office (IH), Budapest’s equivalent of the CIA, targeted investigators at the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), which at one point was looking into a Hungarian company owned by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s son-in-law.
The report by Hungarian investigative media center Direkt36 and Belgian newspaper De Tijd cited examples between 2015 and 2017 in which EU officials working for OLAF who had traveled to Hungary were physically followed during car journeys and had their phones tapped.
The report added that it is common practice by Hungary’s spy agency to search the hotel rooms of visiting EU delegations and download information from their laptops.
Contacted by POLITICO, Bertalan Havasi, press chief of Orbán’s office, said: “We are not dealing with fake news reports.”
Budapest has long been accused of hacking the phones of journalists, activists and opposition figures, with a Hungarian lawmaker acknowledging in 2021 that the government had purchased Israeli spyware. Earlier this year, an MEP critical of Hungary was also targeted by a cyberattack.
A spokesperson for OLAF said the agency does not comment on specific allegations, but they stressed “the importance of being able to carry out its investigations into fraud, corruption and any other illegal activities affecting the financial interests of the European Union unimpeded.”
“We remain committed to carrying out our mission, with our operational partners, with impartiality and in full respect of the rule of law,”.
