Romania: Hungarian majority-owned company linked to far-right party AUR campaign
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A Hungarian majority-owned company was also involved in the Romanian AUR party’s election campaign. At the heart of the story are campaign letters sent by party president George Simion to millions of voters, but the links go back to Hungary and RMDSZ, while serious data protection issues have also been raised.
According to Transtelex, the printing of the campaign letters was carried out by a company called Zipper Services SRL, which is based in Romania but with Hungarian ownership. One of the two founders of the company is the Budapest-based ANY Security Printing Company PLC (ANY Biztonsági Nyomda), formerly known as State Printing House, which is responsible for the production of Hungarian identity cards and passports, among other things. The other founder is Tipoholding SA, which is headed by Gábor Kerekes, former Executive Vice President of the RMDSZ and State Secretary of the Romanian Ministry of Telecommunications.
The financial background and the link between the AUR
The financial flows were investigated by the Romanian Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP). AEP documents revealed that the amount for printing services was paid to Zipper by a company called DGI Multimedia Design. This DGI is closely linked to the AUR party and, according to the Romanian press, is essentially the AUR’s ‘in-house company’.
According to official information from the Romanian Postal Service, they delivered more than a million of these campaign letters, but they were not directly for AUR, but had a contractual relationship with Zipper. The AEP also investigated the role of the Post Office and found that the delivery contract was in fact concluded with them by Zipper Services, so that the official contact was the Hungarian majority-owned printing house.
One of the key players in the story is Gábor Kerekes, who, as founder of Tipoholding SA, was indirectly involved in the operation of Zipper Services. Kerekes is no stranger to Romania: in addition to his political career, he was indicted by the Directorate for Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) in 2009 and sentenced to four years in prison in 2015.
However, Kerekes fled abroad before the verdict and was eventually captured in Germany. The current ownership structure of Zipper Services SRL is 60% owned by ANY Security Printing Plc, while the remaining 40% is held by Doru Ioan Vîjîianu, who is also the company’s CEO. The DeFapt.ro portal contacted both George Simion and Vîjîianu about the matter, but neither of them responded.
