The Dynasty - How the Orbán family’s economic empire was born

February 17, 2025 4:07 AM

By the 15th year of Viktor Orbán’s rule, his son-in-law had become one of the richest men in Hungary. István Tiborcz had built an empire of luxury properties, financial and logistics companies. As his businesses grew, he also climbed the Forbes list of the country's 50 wealthiest people. His wife, Ráhel Orbán, the Prime Minister's eldest child, is also involved in the management of some elements of the group. Tiborcz and his wife claim to have achieved all this on their own. But the reality is different. In fact, the business activities of the Prime Minister's family were linked to Viktor Orbán's political career as early as the 1990s, and this has reached a new level with the construction of Tiborcz’s empire. The story of this is told in this film, produced by the investigative reporting center Direkt36 in collaboration with independent filmmakers. (SLYT, English subtitles)
posted by kmt (3 comments total)

I was in Budapest in 1989. Beautiful city still under the Soviet thumb, but changing. This one hour video paints a very interesting picture of what happened later. You can not help but see parallels. Resorts, clubs, real estate, government contracts, now rolled into politics and government, yielding billionaires. No wonder that our Orban likes the Hungarian Orban so much.
posted by njohnson23 at 11:22 AM on February 17 [5 favorites]

Coming soon to a country near you.
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy at 6:02 AM on February 18

Orban's FIDESZ controlled government TV news (via the FIDESZ friendly portal Hir.tv is not happy about this report, claiming that it was produced on order of the Ukrainian government with USAID funding. Which is what you would expect them to say, at least this week. Next week they may be claiming that Haitians are eating pets in Szeged.

With 2.9 million views this video is the most widely seen exposé of the corruption system in Hungary, a nation of 9 million. The problem in Hungary is that most people have become so accustomed to political corruption that they think it is normal, and that the Prime Minister is like a King: he "protects" us and so to him and his family the wealth and riches are rightly due. I live in a liberal bubble in Budapest, but by far most Hungarians believe that this is the normal way the world works.
posted by zaelic at 5:41 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]