Hungarian government files criminal charges against investigative journalist who exposed Budapest-Moscow ties
The Hungarian government has filed criminal charges against investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi, accusing him of spying in cooperation with foreign intelligence services, state news agency MTI reported on March 26, citing the weekly press briefing by Gergely Gulyas, the minister heading the Prime Minister's Office. On another controversial issue, Gulyas accused Tisza Party IT experts who uncovered a covert intelligence operation against the opposition party of spying for Ukraine.
Hungary's domestic politics have been boiling in the final leg of the pre-election campaign, with fresh scandals emerging daily. Last weekend, the Washington Post revealed, citing EU intelligence sources, that Russia's SVR considered staging an assassination attempt against Prime Minister Viktor Orban to tilt the election in his favour.
European security officials also told the Washington Post that Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto regularly conferred with his Russian counterpart before and after EU meetings to exchange updates and discuss policy. Szijjarto acknowledged coordinating with Sergei Lavrov but dismissed reports alleging wrongdoing, denied sharing sensitive information, and rejected any suggestion of interfering in other countries' domestic policies, insisting it was part of normal diplomacy.
A few days after the report, Panyi, working for Vsquare and Direkt36, published transcripts of a February 2020 conversation between the two, in which Hungary's chief diplomat was lobbying for a meeting between then Slovak prime minister Peter Pellegrini and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to boost the electoral chances of Slovakia’s Smer-SD party, an ally of Orban.
The release came just after a wiretapped conversation appeared on pro-government media in which Panyi is heard talking to one of his sources inquiring about phone numbers used by the foreign minister.
The journalist explained that he wanted to verify whether Szijjarto was using a secret third device for sensitive exchanges with Moscow, while the government framed the incident as evidence that the investigative journalist was working with foreign intelligence services and providing them with Szijjarto's phone numbers, a rather dubious claim.
Orban called on his justice minister to launch an investigation, describing the wiretapping of the foreign minister as a serious breach, accusing Panyi without naming him.
Years ago, Panyi was targeted with Pegasus spyware, used by Hungarian authorities against journalists, lawyers, and opposition figures.
Responding to comments by Gulyas, Panyi said the espionage accusations against an investigative journalist were unprecedented in an EU country, calling the situation comparable to Russia or Belarus. He denied cooperating with any foreign intelligence services and said the Hungarian government lacks independent institutions capable of investigating high-level official espionage.
He also declined to publicly disclose his sources, citing journalistic source protection. Panyi, who has spent over a decade investigating Russian influence in Hungarian politics, vowed to release further evidence of collaboration between the Hungarian political elite and Moscow and said the Szijjarto-Lavrov files were just the "tip of the iceberg”.
In a fresh Facebook post, he wrote that his ongoing research since 2016-2017 suggests that large sums of cash and precious stones may have been transported from Russia to Hungary on government and private aircraft. He said that at least six foreign officials had confirmed these operations, and noted that the intelligence reports did not originate from surveillance of Hungarian targets or infrastructure, but from intercepted communications of Russian officials or logistical personnel.
The Hungarian government is also facing serious allegations in another high-profile case that it deployed its intelligence services against the Tisza Party in 2024-2025, according to Telex.hu.
Bence Szabo, a senior investigator at the Cybercrime Department of the National Bureau of Investigation (NNI), told Direkt36 in a lengthy interview that his team came under pressure from Hungary's domestic intelligence agency (AvH) overseen by Fidesz strongman Antal Rogan, during an investigation into two people working on the Tisza Party's IT team.
The inquiry began following an anonymous tip in July 2025 alleging the men were involved in child pornography. While those allegations proved baseless, the investigation uncovered hundreds of communications between the two and an unknown individual.
Investigators were reportedly prevented from pursuing evidence against unidentified operatives who allegedly attempted to infiltrate the Tisza Party to sabotage its IT infrastructure through blackmail or financial inducements. Szabo said intelligence services applied pressure to derail the police investigation.
The anonymous tip coincided with the day the two Tisza Party associates had planned to deploy a hidden camera to expose the operatives, which, according to Szabo, confirms they had been under surveillance throughout the period when recruitment attempts were made.
After the video interview was published, police carried out searches at Szabo's workstation and home, he was questioned as a suspect for abuse of office. He said he had submitted his resignation but remained in the police force at the time of the interview.
At the press briefing, Gulyas accused the Tisza IT people of working for Ukraine, insisting they had been trained abroad and were "constantly in and out of the Ukrainian embassy”.
Espionage activities had picked up ahead of the Hungarian parliamentary election, he said, calling on Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to "stop state-sponsored espionage in the Hungarian election campaign”. This echoed a similar message from the prime minister, as the government is resorting to playing the Ukraine card.
Opposition leader Peter Magyar called the intelligence operation the biggest scandal since the regime change and compared it to Watergate. He warned the government that if any harm comes to Bence Szabo, whom he called a hero, it will have to answer to the Hungarian people.
In a video, Magyar claimed that Hungary’s intelligence services deployed Candiru in its latest operation, an Israeli spyware program, of the most sophisticated spyware tools available, known for its advanced surveillance capabilities, Nepszava writes.
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