Panama files: the richest Hungarians included

Origo.hu reports that further Hungarians were involved in the offshore scandal as more names on the Panama lists became revealed. Sándor Csányi, CEO of OTP had a yacht through a Maltese company, while Zoltán Spéder, president of FHB appeared to be involved in the operations of two offshore companies. But it also turned out that Tamás Szemerey, cousin of György Matolcsy (Governor of the Hungarian National Bank) had joined an offshore company in 2009-2010, operating on the British Virgin Islands.

New details and names have become known regarding the participants of the Panama offshore scandal. Earlier, it was published that Zsolt Horváth, former FIDESZ politician was involved in an offshore company, just like the wife of László Boldvai, MSZP politician, for she had an offshore company with a Swiss bank account.

Szemerey, cousin of Matolcsy was the owner of Sunjoy Development, a company on the British Virgin Islands between 2009 and 2010, in order to participate in developing technologies outside Europe, writes origo. Later though, due to being too busy in Hungary, he left the company. According to him, Matolcsy did not know about his firm, as they do not really talk about his business.

Csányi, CEO of OTP Bank stated that the offshore company was needed for maintaining a sailing catamaran, as the staff of the ship came from different countries and the ship itself also left the EU occasionally. He said that it is rather common, on an international scale, to let the maintenance of a ship done by an offshore company, preferably one related to a British authority, because of their naval tradition.

Spéder, from FHB Bank, was an appointed commissioner for two companies. One of them was the Whitestone International on the Seychelles, which company was the owner of CEMP for years, which, by the way, owns the Hungarian site, Index.hu. Spéder, however, said that he was not the owner of Whitestone nor of the other firm, Novum Asset Management, in which he was said to have been involved, too.

György Gattyán is also mentioned: he established a trust in Nevada, according to the Panama papers, in order to be able to settle down in the US. Furthermore, it turned out that he had a house in Los Angeles which was worth about 6.5 billion HUF.

Copy editor: bm

Source: origo.hu