All posts by Panyi Szabolcs

How Viktor Orbán angered his closest friends in Europe

Galavits Patrik, Panyi Szabolcs 2023.05.15.

A box of excrement was sent to the Hungarian Embassy in Warsaw, president Katalin Novák was lectured by the Polish prime minister, and Viktor Orbán’s European ambitions were jeopardized. Direkt36, in cooperation with Vsquare, have uncovered the behind the scenes story of the Hungarian-Polish alliance, which previously seemed unbreakable, since the outbreak of the war.

Bracing for US sanctions, Russian financier in Budapest was busy securing personal offshore assets, leaked documents reveal

Wirth Zsuzsanna, Panyi Szabolcs 2023.04.25.

Until last autumn, Nikolay Kosov headed the International Investment Bank, which is leaving Hungary. According to documents obtained by Direkt36, the Russian banker, who has since been hit by US sanctions, was planning to transfer his family’s assets to Dubai.

Russians demand their money in Hungary’s controversial golden visa scheme

Panyi Szabolcs, Marton Kamilla 2023.03.21.

Lawyers of bondholders told Direkt36 that hundreds of thousands of euros were stuck with the intermediary company VolDan. Meanwhile, the company’s Hungarian representative office has become unavailable, and the company is under a compulsory strike off procedure from the official registry of companies.

“We need to pressure” the Hungarians – Leaked documents reveal collapse of Russian-led bank in Budapest

Panyi Szabolcs, Szabó András, Wirth Zsuzsanna, Marton Kamilla, Pethő András 2023.03.13.

Internal documents obtained by Direkt36 reveal that the Hungarian government has become one of the strongest backers of the Russian-dominated International Investment Bank, which was brought to the brink of collapse by the war against Ukraine.

Russian spy chief’s son has a Budapest home address. In the company property of an old friend of Orbán’s chief of staff

Panyi Szabolcs 2022.11.10.

Official document shows that Andrey Naryshkin, who acquired residency permit in the Hungarian golden visa scheme, had his registered home address in a property owned by pro-government businessman Shabtai Michaeli’s company just a few months ago. According to the government, Naryshkin’s residency permit was revoked by the counterintelligence service two years ago, but the case was stalled in court.

Inside Viktor Orbán’s Response to the War in Ukraine

Szabó András, Panyi Szabolcs 2022.10.21.

Viktor Orbán came home from his talks with Vladimir Putin saying that he did not expect war. When it did break out, there was some wavering on the continuation of the government’s pro-Russian policy, but in the end, there was no change of direction because of the importance of Russian natural gas as well as longtime anti-Western sentiments.

A 10 legfontosabb részlet az Orbán háborús döntéseiről szóló tényfeltáró cikkből

Szabó András, Panyi Szabolcs 2022.10.21.

Mi érdekelte Putyint, amikor februárban találkozott Orbánnal? Miért látta lehetőségnek a háborút Rogán a kampányban? Miért nézi rossz szemmel az USA-t a magyar miniszterelnök? Itt vannak a nyomozásunk legizgalmasabb részletei.

The inside story of how Pegasus was brought to Hungary

Panyi Szabolcs 2022.09.28.

Direkt36 has revealed that the cyber weapon was purchased by the Hungarian state through a broker company that later became partly owned by Minister of Interior Sándor Pintér’s close confidant, László Tasnádi, who once worked for the Communist state security apparatus. The company also involved a businessman who had previous ties to the current left-wing opposition. Pegasus was considered such an expensive and top-class weapon by the intelligence agencies that it was kept secret even in internal circles.

Western allies puzzled by Hungary’s mild reaction to Russian hacking

Panyi Szabolcs 2022.07.14.

Russia’s hacking of the Hungarian foreign ministry is a concern for the EU, and the U.S. has already warned Hungary and other allies about the dangers of Russian cyberattacks. The Orbán government could in principle ask for EU help to tackle the problem, but there is no sign so far that it will do so.

Cables show how Orbán’s diplomats gather information on journalists

Panyi Szabolcs 2022.06.09.

The information contained in these documents was gathered by diplomats of the Orbán government from social media profiles of journalists or online reports, as well as by inquiring foreign government officials.

Inside the opposition’s crushing defeat against Viktor Orbán

Panyi Szabolcs, Pethő András, Szabó András, Matyasovszki Fanni, Szőke Dániel 2022.05.17.

The chaos was even bigger inside the campaign than it looked from the outside. Direkt36 has investigated how the opposition, which led in the polls last fall, lost against Viktor Orbán’s governing party yet again.

The attorney became a Pegasus target when one of Hungary’s most notorious murder cases took a turn

Panyi Szabolcs, Matyasovszki Fanni 2022.03.31.

Ilona Patócs is not the first lawyer to be targeted, despite the fact that protecting client communication is an essential part of her job, Direkt36 has learned. Nor is she the only target to have been involved in a Portik case.

Putin’s hackers gained full access to Hungary’s foreign ministry networks, the Orbán government has been unable to stop them

Panyi Szabolcs 2022.03.29.

Russian state actors hacked into the Hungarian Foreign Ministry’s computer network compromising internal correspondence and even a secure network that transmits classified information. The recurring cyberattacks over the past decade were kept quiet by the Orbán government, and have not been successfully countered. With the help of internal documents and background interviews, Direkt36 exposes Russian cyber espionage against Hungary’s MFA.

Former Hungarian ambassador to China was targeted with Pegasus – shortly before becoming senior advisor to Orbán

Panyi Szabolcs, Matyasovszki Fanni 2022.03.22.

Cecília Szilas is not the first high-ranking Hungarian official who was targeted with the Pegasus spyware. Her phone was added to the list during her stint at a conflict-ridden company called Dunaferr, shortly before becoming the Prime Minister’s senior advisor on China.

Spies, business deals and criminals. How Orbán favors Russian interests instead of Western ones

Panyi Szabolcs, Szabó András 2022.03.01.

In the past 12 years, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government has gotten into a situation many times, when they had to decide between the interests of Western allies, or Russia. Direkt36 has revealed many cases, where, in the end, the government favored Vladimir Putin and his circles. It occurred, for example, that they drove a Hungarian company out of business, just to be able to make space for a Russian firm.

Orbánék leszerződtették a Pegasus kémszoftver gyártójának korábbi lobbistáját

Panyi Szabolcs 2022.01.24.

Egy olyan washingtoni lobbistát szerződtetett 2021 végén a magyar kormány, aki egészen odáig az okostelefonok feltörésére alkalmas Pegasus kémszoftvert kifejlesztő izraeli cégnek dolgozott

Így ellenőrizheted, megfigyelték-e az iPhone-odat a Pegasus kémszoftverrel

Panyi Szabolcs 2021.12.23.

Kiket figyeltek meg a kémszoftverrel? Az én telefonom is rajta lehet a Pegasus? Hogyan működik a program, amelyikkel meg lehet találni a megfigyelés nyomait? Kérdések és válaszok a Direkt36-tól.

Hungarian president’s closest bodyguards targeted with Pegasus spyware

Panyi Szabolcs 2021.12.13.

Targeting the president’s bodyguards may have been related to the internal struggle within the security agencies, which intensified after the Counter Terrorism Center wanted to find out the details of President János Áder’s schedules, a Direkt36 investigation has found. Even the smallest details of Áder’s activity could be monitored through the surveillance of his bodyguards with Pegasus.

A biztonsági szervek rászálltak a pilótára, aki a fideszes elit repülőútjait figyelte. Aztán feltűnt a Pegasus-célpontok között is

Panyi Szabolcs 2021.11.22.

A ma már pilótaként dolgozó egykori tévés műsorvezető, Pető György szerint azért kerülhetett ő a hatóságok látókörébe, mert információkkal segítette a befolyásos emberek magánrepülőzéséről beszámoló újságírókat.

A Gyurcsány-kormány két nemzetbiztonsági vezetőjét is célba vették a Pegasusszal

Panyi Szabolcs 2021.11.12.

Nem egyértelmű, miért került a célkeresztbe 2019-ben Laborc Sándor egykori NBH-vezető és korábbi kollégája, Glemba Zoltán. Az egykori titkosszolgálati vezetők azt mondják, hogy kormányzati körökben máig tartanak attól, hogy számukra káros információk vannak a birtokukban.