US ambassador: Reports on planned sanctions against Orbán’s rich friend ‘false’

The United States is not threatening to impose sanctions on individuals, David Cornstein, the US ambassador to Hungary, said in an interview concerning press reports on alleged preparations in the US for such sanctions against Hungarian businessman Lőrinc Mészáros.

In the interview, published online by atv.hu, the ambassador said that a joint article on Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal and Hungary’s Átlátszó contained false information suggesting that Mészáros, one of Hungary’s richest entrepreneurs, could be banned from the US and his US assets could be frozen under the Global Magnitsky Act.

Speaking on commercial broadcaster ATV, Cornstein said he had not heard of such plans.

He also added that if the US administration had such plans, the recent meeting between US President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would not have taken place.

For that matter, fresh statistics suggests that Mészáros’s fortune increased by 889 million Euros in 5 years, which also means that his assets increased by 178 million Euros each month, by 3.4 million Euros each week and by 487,287 Euros every single day. He basically earns 5.6 Euros every second!

Moreover, Lőrinc Mészáros’s RM International Zrt received the contract in collaboration with two Chinese companies to construct the new train line from Budapest to Belgrade.

Source: MTI