Circles of Hungarian national arrested in the U.S. likely received hundreds of thousands of euros from Hungarian state in Russia

According to Telex's research, the Moscow-based Russian company Torgoviy Dom Venrus Trade is the one connected to the circles involved in the recent sanction-evading scandal in the United States. The main actor in the case is Bence H., a Hungarian citizen living in Spain (and Abu Dhabi), who was recently arrested in the United States. Torgoviy Dom Venrus Trade is a company that has served as a partner of the Hungarian Export Promotion Agency (HEPA, which is part of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) when doing business in countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

As previously reported, Bence H., 46, was attempting to smuggle handheld Motorola radios, which are commercially available but can also be used for military purposes, into Russia with his associates, and was arrested in the United States on 23 August. H. and his associates were attempting to smuggle the devices from the United States to Russia through various shell companies.

Among other things, the Hungarian man is accused of conspiring to illegally, without authorization, export U.S.-origin radio communications technology to Russian government end users. When he was arrested on 23 August, H. had just arrived at San Francisco International Airport in California. He could be facing up to 20 years in prison.

According to our research, the Moscow-based Torgoviy Dom Venrus Trade is linked to the circles of Bence H. in several ways. In the immediate proximity of the Moscow-based Torgoviy Dom Venrus Trade we found a Renáta M. whose name also popped up around H.'s Spanish companies.

According to the Russian company registry, Torgoviy Dom Vernus Trade was founded in 2018, and has three owners: a relative of Bence H.'s mother (Margarita Ficzere) by the name of Mihály Ficzere, Natalya Alexandrovna Svirshevskaya, and a company called Budafon. According to Budafon’s social media page, Bence H.'s mother and Mihály Ficzere are both from the Hungarian town of Mezőkövesd. By the way, Budafon Ltd. is registered at the same Moscow address as Torgoviy Dom Vernus.

Torgoviy Dom Venrus Trade has been a contracting partner of HEPA (Hungarian Export Promotion Agency) since September 2019, the contract was open-ended. We found a document on HEPA's website that shows that the Moscow-based company was paid nearly HUF 19 million (48 400 euros) per month for its activities by the agency which operates under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The contract was reportedly terminated in March 2023.

This means that the Russian company could have received more than HUF 816 million (2 million euros) from the Hungarian state agency between autumn 2019 and spring 2023.

The date is all the more interesting because US investigators believe that Bence H. and his circle began arranging the delivery of Motorola radios to Russia by circumventing the sanctions in January 2023. At that time, HEPA was still contracting with the company known as Torgoviy Dom Venrus Trade.

However, we have not found any evidence that Torgoviy Dom Venrus Trade was in any way involved in the currently unfolding case involving Bence H. and his associates. Additionally, the names of the companies and the other persons involved are kept anonymous in the court documents relating to the case, with only Bence H. being named.

Since we were able to obtain the contact details of Renata M. in an open-source database relating to Torgoviy Dom Venrus Trade, we contacted her to ask her some questions about the company's activities and about Bence H., but so far we have not been able to reach her.

It was reported by 444.hu that Bence H.'s mother, Margarita Ficzere, was also involved in exporting Motorola radios to Russia. The paper also revealed that the mother of the man arrested in the US for smuggling used to head the Moscow office of the Hungarian Export Promotion Agency and was the official supplier of the Russian Ministry of Interior.

In a response sent to Telex about the above, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said: Margarita Ficzere was an employee of the Hungarian Export Promotion Agency's partner office in Moscow. This was a Russian company tasked with promoting the products and services of Hungarian companies in Russia and the Caucasus region. "The partner office was closed in March 2023, and Margarita Ficzere has no contractual relationship with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," they wrote.

Although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not mention the name of the Russian company they referred to, according to information gathered by Telex so far, Torgoviy Dom Venrus Trade is likely the company that was HEPA's partner in Moscow, as it was the only company in the region with which the Hungarian Export Promotion Agency had a contract starting in autumn 2019.

According to one of the available court documents on the case, Bence H. and his associates would have used an unnamed Hungarian telecommunications company to evade the sanctions. This is interesting because Torgoviy Dom Vernus is part of the Russian telecoms network builder and service developer Budafon Ltd.

In the 1990s, Budafon was present in Hungary (under the name Budaphone Műszaki, Kereskedelmi és Szolgáltató Kft.) as well, and at times it acted as a supplier to the Russian Ministry of Interior. Additionally, Budaphone Műszaki, Kereskedelmi és Szolgáltató Kft. belonged to Bence H.'s mother, and the company was exporting Motorola's communication equipment to Russia. However, this company couldn't be involved in the sanctions evasion case as it was liquidated in 2012.