TEK identifies eight phone numbers tied to Paris, Brussels attacks

Budapest (MTI) – Hungarian counter-terrorism force TEK on Saturday said it had identified eight telephone numbers that could be connected to the terrorists who carried out the attacks in Paris and Brussels, and six of these were activated using the name of a local homeless man who bought a large number of SIM cards in Hungary.

TEK said that French and Belgian authorities had not taken notice of suspicious calls from Hungarian telephone numbers and had not pointed out to their Hungarian counterparts that a large number of telephone subscriptions were tied to a single person.

TEK said they had identified Hungarian telephone numbers used by terrorists in the same circle of Salah Abdeslam, one of the organisers of the terrorist attacks, who used a Belgian telephone number while in Hungary.

Most of the telephone numbers belonged to a single homeless man; however, the terrorists acquired the SIM cards at different locations, not in a single “Arab-owned GSM shop,” as was reported a few days earlier by Nepszabadsag, TEK said.

A number of unknown persons have bought large numbers of SIM cards using the personal data of the homeless man, but TEK was unaware of this because Hungarian regulations do not allow it access to telecommunications service providers’ databases, the counter-terrorism force said.

TEK said earlier that 14 of the terrorists who participated in the attacks in Paris and Brussels travelled through Hungary between the spring and autumn of 2015.

Source: MTI