Probe of PMʼs son-in-law wider than originally announced
The European Commission has a broader investigation into the business activities of the Hungarian prime minister’s son-in-law than was originally reported, members of the investigative journalism center Direkt36 reported yesterday.
István Tiborcz (left) with Hungaryʼs Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (photo: official Facebook page of Viktor Orbán)
According to the article from Direkt36, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Regional Policies secretly launched an audit of Elios Innovatív during the period when it was owned by István Tiborcz, the Prime Minister’s son-in-law.
The EC’s OLAF anti-fraud office had confirmed several months ago that they had launched a probe into projects awarded to a company called Elios Innovatív. These projects were almost entirely funded by the EU.
“Elios won a series of public tenders for street lighting developments in several Hungarian cities, in most cases without facing any competition,” according to a report from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. “It was the implementation of these tenders that first came under suspicion but the investigators are also looking into how Elios carried out the projects, including the prices it charged for some of its products.
Direkt36 reported in June that Elios sold street lamps at an unusually high price, raising the budget of the projects.”
Tiborcz reportedly sold his shares in Elios Innovatív in the spring of 2015, but the investigations are said to focus on the period when he still owned the company
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