Hungary Files Fraud Complaint Over $965M Ventilator Deal

Hungary's foreign ministry has filed a criminal complaint with prosecutors over suspected fraud tied to the previous government's purchase of ventilators worth roughly $965 million during the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Minister Anita Orbán said Tuesday.

The government under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán bought about 17,000 ventilators from China in March and April 2020. The deal drew criticism at the time for acquiring far more units than could realistically be deployed and for paying much higher prices than other European countries.

In a video posted to Facebook, Foreign Minister Orbán — who is not related to the former prime minister — said the ministry's investigation "raises suspicions of breach of fiduciary duty causing particularly substantial financial loss and other criminal offenses." She did not detail specific allegations but said the probe involved tens of thousands of documents, some of which had to be recovered using digital tools after unsuccessful attempts to delete them. She said the findings raise further questions about the responsibility of the ministry's former senior leadership.

A statement on the Hungarian government's website cited other suspected irregularities, including that most of the ventilators were bought through intermediary companies whose revenues rose sharply because of the transaction. Some units were defective, and a significant proportion was never deployed, with storage costs for the unused devices running into the millions of dollars, the statement said.

Former Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, who cultivated close ties with China during nearly 12 years in office, oversaw the ventilator purchase as well as the procurement of 5 million doses of the China-produced Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine.

Last month, Szijjártó resigned his parliamentary seat to take an executive position at Chinese automaker BYD, prompting accusations of a conflict of interest over his role in approving government subsidies for the company while in office. Hungary's government has since opened a separate investigation into large BYD investments made in the country during his tenure.