Court orders pre-trial detention of Croatian fraudster

Budapest, January 3 (MTI) – A municipal court has ordered the pre-trial detention of a Hungarian-Croatian dual citizen for alleged fraud involving half a million euros paid by Hungarian entrepreneurs, news broadcast programme Hirado reported on Saturday evening.

Presenting himself either as an EU commissioner or a war hero, the 45-year-old man had persuaded 18 Hungarian entrepreneurs to pay him 10,000-20,000 euros in exchange for “guaranteed” allocations from EU funds, the TV programme said.

The man had managed to swindle about 150 million forints, or half a million euros, from the entrepreneurs between April 2009 and June 2010, according to the programme.

Serbian authorities detained the Croatian man with a dual citizenship in June at the Serbian-Croatian border and extradited him to Hungary on Dec. 29.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters