Hungary investigates $965M COVID-19 ventilator procurement deal

Hungary’s foreign ministry has filed a criminal complaint regarding a suspected fraudulent procurement of approximately 17,000 ventilators from China during the COVID-19 pandemic. The deal, conducted under the previous administration of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is valued at roughly 827 million euros ($965 million).

Foreign Minister Anita Orbán stated that an internal investigation raised suspicions of “breach of fiduciary duty causing particularly substantial financial loss and other criminal offenses.” The ministry reported that many of the ventilators were never deployed, some were defective, and the unused equipment has incurred millions of dollars in storage costs.

Investigators also noted that the purchases were made through intermediary companies that experienced exponential revenue growth due to the transactions. Furthermore, officials reported recovering approximately 88 gigabytes of data, including 130,000 files, following unsuccessful attempts to delete digital documentation related to the deal.