Mother of Hungarian arrested in US for smuggling used to lead Moscow office of Hungarian Foreign Ministry's background institution

The mother of 46-year-old Bence H., arrested in the United States for smuggling, headed up the office of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry's company and was the official supplier of the Russian Interior Ministry, 444.hu reports. Based on publicly available data, the paper writes that the woman who used to lead the Moscow office of the Hungarian Export Development Agency (HEPA), a background institution of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and the arrested man may be closely related.

We previously wrote in some detail about the Hungarian national who was arrested in the United States on suspicion of conspiring to illegally export American-made radio communications technology to Russian government end-users without a license. According to Telex's information, these were hand-held Motorola radio transceivers and Bence H. and his associates were trying to transfer them to Russia through various shell companies. The US authorities suspect that the devices would have been supplied on Russian state orders.

According to 444, it was the arrested man's mother who previously ran the company that was Motorola's official supplier in Russia and which also supplied the Russian Interior Ministry with these devices starting in 2005. After that, Margarita Ficzere Horváth worked as the head of the office of a Hungarian state-owned company, a background institution of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 13 December 2019, she opened the Moscow office along with Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó. The State News Agency, MTI even published a photo of the event:

We have contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find out if Péter Szijjártó knows Margarita Horváth Ficzere and her son, and what kind of relationship the ministry currently has with HEPA. We will update this article as soon as we receive answers.

Update:

Responding to our query, the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that Margarita Ficzere, the mother of 46-year-old Bence H., who was arrested in the United States on charges of smuggling, did not work at any Hungarian state-owned company. We contacted the press department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade after 444.hu reported that the mother of the man arrested in the US led the Moscow office of the Hungarian Export Development Agency (HEPA), a background institution of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, which was also the official supplier of the Russian Ministry of Interior.

The newspaper based the published information, including the claim that the man arrested in the United States and the former leader of HEPA's Moscow office may be closely related on publicly available data.

"Margarita Ficzere did not hold a position in a Hungarian state-owned company. She was an employee of the Moscow partner office of the Hungarian Export Development Agency, a Russian company tasked with promoting the products and services of Hungarian companies in Russia and the Caucasus region," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.