OTP Bank files report linked to tax authority probe of Budapest mayor’s campaign financing

OTP Bank has filed a report in connection with an ongoing tax authority (NAV) investigation into the financing of Gergely Karácsony’s opposition 99 Movement, the daily Magyar Nemzet said on Wednesday.

According to an official report on foreign influence in last year’s elections prepared for parliament’s national security committee, an associate of Karácsony, who is the mayor of Budapest, Gábor Perjés, was identified as the sole contributor to the bank account of the 99 Movement, and more than four-fifths of the money — HUF 526 million deposited into the account — was in euro and pound banknotes.

The paper said that in connection with press reports concerning donation boxes and how that information squared with the records submitted by Perjes, OTP Bank had launched an internal audit and found that most donations were from Hungarians living abroad, and the bank had been presented with 2,000-3,000 banknotes at a time, the majority in new euro notes — mostly 50 and 100 euro denominations — in many cases consecutively numbered and stuck together as if fresh off the printing press.

Also, payments corresponded to the amount of transfers made immediately after the payment to one of the movement’s key partners, the paper said, referring to the DatAdat group.