Hungarian government files complaint against company of Orbán's former press advisor

The Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office has filed a criminal complaint on suspicion of embezzlement and abuse of office relating to Viktor Orbán’s social media posts, the government announced. The Prime Minister’s Office, led by Bálint Ruff, has filed the complaint against an unknown perpetrator after reviewing the former prime minister’s most recent contracts related to his social media presence, which involved a total of 4 billion forints (nearly 11 million euros) in public funds. The contract was awarded without a public procurement process to a company owned by Fanny Kaminski, who is known as Viktor Orbán’s press advisor.

According to a statement from the government, the Prime Minister’s Office, which was led by Antal Rogán at the time, signed a framework agreement in 2022 with a company called Triton Communications in relation to magaging Viktor Orbán’s social media presence. The initial monthly fee agreed upon with the company’s director, Fanny Kaminski, was 63,680,000 forints (174,131 euros). In exchange for this amount, Triton was required to take photographs and videos, as well as prepare social media monitoring reports.

The contract was extended four times, with the commission fee increased each time. This meant that following the most recent amendment last September, the company—which employs five people—was paid 23 million forints more per month than initially agreed, i.e. a total of 86 million 487,000 forints (€237,000) although the scope of work remained unchanged.

The government’s statement also specifies how much public money the company has received since 2022: over 44 months, it received a gross total of 4,228,924,813 forints (more than €11.5 million) in public funds from the Cabinet Office for producing Viktor Orbán’s social media content. In practice, this translated to providing photographs, videos, and a media monitoring report, which was just a few pages long. According to the completion reports, the videos averaged 15 seconds in length, but there were months when there were only 21 minutes of video footage and 411 photos produced for more than 63 million forints. It is important to note that the contract was exempted from the public procurement process on the grounds that the prime minister is a protected person.

Fanny Kaminski has been the sole owner of Triton since 2022. In 2021, the company’s revenue was only 20 million forints, but it skyrocketed beginning in 2022: reaching 260.7 million in 2022, 800.8 million in 2023, 942.3 million in 2024, and 1.087 billion forints in 2025. The company has five employees, with personnel expenses totaling 158 million forints last year. Kaminski withdrew more than 50 million in dividend payments from the firm in 2024, while last year’s financial report showed a payout of just 30 million.

As previously reported in our portrait of Kaminski, she has been a key member of Viktor Orbán’s communications team since 2010. She played a major role in Fidesz’s efforts throughout the second half of the 2010s to build a propaganda machine that even included the tabloid media in its toolkit.

In response to Telex's request for comment, Fidesz's communicaitons director Bertalan Havasi wrote: “Bálint Ruff and his people are distorting the facts—and not just a little. They are obviously attacking Fanny Kaminski and her company for political reasons, since she has clearly carried out her duties".

This article has been updated after publication to include the reaction from Fidesz's communications director.