Kulcsár investigation ends

Whilst the suspects in the HUF20bn K&H broker scandal may get off relatively lightly, the Socialist Party may be worst affected, since, at least according to Attila Kulcsár, the former broker at the centre of the scandal, many major figures in the party are implicated.

Ever more parallels are emerging between the statements of Zsolt Nógrádi, the main witness to the parliamentary oil committee of five years ago and the K&H Equities's one-time star broker, Attila Kulcsár. Two young men, both with a flexible approach to the law, both started their careers as repentant mafiosi. Admitting their own roles, they started talking about their crimes. But both then got carried away, weaving ever more public figures into their stories, gradually losing credibility.

Kulcsár, the central figure in the HUF20bn money-laundering scandal, who tries to portray himself as a helpless puppet in his 600-page confession, first mentioned a group of Socialists - László Puch, the party's treasurer, Ferenc Baja, political state secretary to the prime minister, the interior minister's husband.

He then tried to implicate more or less the whole leadership of the police's financial crimes unit as well as informing on most of his partners in crime. True, he did everything to exculpate his former boss and mentor Tibor E Rejtő, K&H Bank's one-time CEO. He seems to have been successful in this: people close to the investigation do not rule out the possibility of charges against Rejtő being dropped, with Kulcsár only being prosecuted for embezzlement.

But, amidst all these mafia-style stories of senior police officers, corrupt politicians, shifty bankers, it seems we have lost sight of what Kulcsár actually confessed to. Even though it is instructive to see how he shifted responsibility on to his supposed co-conspirators. He claims to have met Csaba Kerék, the Hungarian representative of Britton LLC in a Buda patisserie. Kerék told him about a lucrative Swiss investment. It was only after his superiors declined the offer that Kulcsár decided to get involved behind their backs. But Kerék failed to pay, and it was only then that Kulcsár started looking for the cash. More suspiciously, Kulcsár claims that Britton still has the cash and that he himself has no money - despite spending HUF20-30m whilst on the run in Austria.