The Tisza Party, the opposition force now leading in the polls ahead of the elections scheduled for April 12, was going through rough days when party chairman P\u00e9ter Magyar held a press conference on November 18, 2024. He was visibly irritated, as new clips of conversations secretly recorded by his ex-girlfriend, Evelin Vogel, had just been posted online.<\/p>\n
Magyar, with barely concealed anger, lashed out at the independent press for giving space to \u201cmanipulated, edited,\u201d \u201cobtained through criminal activity,\u201d and \u201csecretly recorded private conversations.\u201d Referring to Antal Rog\u00e1n, the minister responsible for the secret services, he called the continuous release of the recordings made by Vogel the \u201cT\u00f3nika Show\u201d.<\/p>\n
He also mentioned that someone had hacked into his account on Signal, an app designed for encrypted communication, and that undercover agents might be monitoring them; he referred to the current situation as the \u201cHungarian Watergate.\u201d At the press conference, he also presented a black pen, which he said was a spy tool for secret survaillance.<\/p>\n
According to Magyar, one of their colleagues responsible for IT security began searching their offices using amateur equipment, and he discovered the device in one of the conference rooms, in an internet cable duct running along the floor. There was no memory card inside, so he surmised that it was a device controlled via Wi-Fi. According to Magyar, it was not a professional spy pen, but rather an amateur device that could even be purchased online.<\/p>\n
The matter died down after the press conference, and Magyar did not speak about it publicly afterward.<\/p>\n
However, there are several indications that the spy pen may have been part of the covert operation against the party, the details of which we reported in our article published last week<\/a> and in our interview with former police detective Bence Szab\u00f3<\/a>. As part of the operation, a person calling himself \u2018Henry\u2019 attempted to recruit one of the party\u2019s former IT specialists, who appeared in our earlier articles under his online alias, Gundalf, but who, since his interview with 444, has also become known to a wider audience by his real name, D\u00e1niel Hrab\u00f3czki.<\/p>\n We were able to reconstruct the operation aimed at compromising Tisza from the messages exchanged between Henry and Hrab\u00f3czki that came into Direkt36\u2019s possession. The messages also reveal new, previously unknown details about the spy pen.<\/p>\n The documents suggest that it was Hrab\u00f3czki who found the device in the party\u2019s office, meaning he may have been the IT security staff member Magyar referred to at his press conference. On the other hand, the exchange of messages reveals that Henry basically took responsibility for the operation and claimed that his team had planted the spy pen at the party headquarters. If the device was indeed hid in the party office by people connected to Henry, that means they were able to arrange for someone to gain access to the premises and operate there unnoticed.<\/p>\n Henry brought up subject of the spy pen on the night of March 31, 2025. First, he stated that \u201cit\u2019s not as easy to get things into the office now as it was in the fall,\u201d then he asked: \u201cThat reminds me: do you still have the spy pen, or did it end up staying with P\u00e9ter?\u201d He added that it would be important to retrieve it, and Hrab\u00f3czki would receive a generous reward if he could make that happen.<\/p>\n When the young computer scientist mentioned that he was familiar with the matter but didn\u2019t have the device on him, Henry boasted to him about how complex the device was and claimed that the operation was linked to his team: \u201cYou know, we usually try to achieve multiple objectives with a single operation. This thing, for example, ended up there after P\u00e9ter started over-mystifying the wiretapping story\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt worked out perfectly that you were the one going to check out the office,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe were curious to see how thorough you were. Of course, we also secretly hoped that P\u00e9ter would present it as \u2018T\u00f3ni\u2019s super weapon\u2019\u201d \u2014 he added this with a laughing emoji, possibly referring to Antal Rog\u00e1n, the minister responsible for the Hungarian secret services. Then Henry went on to brag. \u201cNo wonder you couldn\u2019t get it to work. Of course, we put a self-destruct mechanism in it to confuse the management even more,\u201d he wrote, presumably referring to the Tisza management. According to him, \u201cit was quite a pain in the ass to put that little thing together.\u201d<\/p>\n Hrab\u00f3czki responded with words of appreciation, noting that it was a nice job. \u201cWe looked at this model too, and compared to other spy pens, it\u2019s pretty slim-fit,\u201d he said. According to Henry, it had to be thrown together \u201cdamn fast,\u201d and \u201cthe bosses\u201d insisted that it absolutely had to be a pen, \u201cso the task was pretty tough.\u201d \u201cWell, but this just goes to show that we\u2019re on the professional, winning side, right, Gundalf?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Hrab\u00f3czki wrote to Henry that when they found the spy pen, there was no SD card inside, so even if it had recorded any data, it was no longer there when they found it. Henry replied, \u201cWell, of course there wasn\u2019t one. This model broadcasts live perfectly. That\u2019s exactly why we chose it.\u201d<\/p>\n We sent the Tisza Party several questions regarding the spy pen and the involvement of an unknown individual named Henry, but they declined to comment. We also received no response from D\u00e1niel Hrab\u00f3czki.<\/p>\n The spy pen didn\u2019t come up in later exchanges, but as we revealed in our March 24 article<\/a> based on documents and conversations with multiple sources, the operation to recruit Hrab\u00f3czki and bring down Tisza continued for months.<\/p>\n Henry and his team wanted to gain control over Tisza\u2019s IT infrastructure so that, at the right moment, before the April 2026 elections, they could paralyze the party\u2019s systems and bring down Tisza. Henry himself revealed this to Hrab\u00f3czki, who pretended to cooperate but took screenshots of the messages and showed them to the IT specialist responsible for Tisza\u2019s cyber defense, known by the nickname Buddha.<\/p>\n When the two computer scientists decided to expose Henry and created a leather belt equipped with a tiny camera for that purpose, the National Bureau of Investigation (NNI) conducted searches of both their homes. The police arrived based on an anonymous tip and seized all data storage devices, searching for child pornography.<\/p>\n The police found no trace of such material on Hrab\u00f3czki and Buddha\u2019s devices, but they did come across screenshots of their message exchanges with Henry. One of the intelligence agencies, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (AH), continuously interfered in the investigation, pushing for the two IT specialists to be charged, while ensuring that investigators could not determine Henry\u2019s identity.<\/p>\nJoin Direkt36 supporter community and get insight into investigative journalism! Details \u2192<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n