Videos show four individuals apprehended in people-smuggling case involving Viktor Orbán's brother

As part of an investigation into people smuggling and corruption, four individuals were apprehended on Monday morning in Budapest, Fót, and Dunakeszi, Hungarian police said. In a joint operation of the National Bureau of Investigation (NNI) and the National Office for Asset Recovery and Protection (NVVH), a man and a woman who were living together as partners, as well as two of their alleged accomplices were taken into custody. At two of the locations, the arrests were carried out by units of the Counter-Terrorism Center (TEK), as police anticipated the presence of weapons in the apartments.

According to the investigation, the four suspects helped Vietnamese citizens travel to Western Europe via Hungary over a period of several months in 2024.

They are suspected of assisting with visa applications at Hungarian diplomatic missions, for which they charged a so-called “recruitment fee” and then divided the proceeds among themselves. Based on information available to the authorities so far, they may have assisted more than one hundred Vietnamese citizens.

Individuals arriving from Vietnam were granted visas to stay in Hungary for a short period, for the purpose of participating in a training program. According to the police, however, the majority of them did not attend the specified training at all, and even those who did failed to leave the country as scheduled. According to the investigators, all of them wanted to reach Western Europe in hopes of a better life. The suspects are believed to have assisted them in this endeavor.

During Monday's house searches carried out over several hours at four separate locations, police seized documents, electronic data, and other potential evidence. The NNI suspects the three men and the woman of people-smuggling committed as part of a criminal conspiracy for financial gain, while the NVVH has charged one of them with influence peddling committed as an instigator. Interrogations and investigative procedures are still ongoing, and the authorities plan to introduce measures of constraint affecting personal liberty against all four suspects. The operation was carried out with the support of Europol.

As previously reported in our coverage of this case, the name of Áron Orbán, the brother of former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, has also come up in the investigation. The NVVH is conducting proceedings in connection with influence peddling related to the issuing of Hungarian visas to Vietnamese citizens. However, the police statement did not identify the four individuals arrested, so it remains unclear whether Áron Orbán was among those detained on Monday.

Anna Unger, head of the National Office for Asset Recovery and Protection (NVVH) would neither confirm nor deny the information Telex had received, namely that on Monday morning, agents from the Counterterrorism Center appeared at a property in Fótliget, which is associated with a company owned by Áron Orbán, the brother of former Hungarian prime minister VIktor Orbán. Unger did, however, say that on Monday morning, the NVVH had “carried out additional activities” in the case involving Áron Orbán, and that they would provide further information on the matter later.

Telex first broke the story about Áron Orbán and his business partners back in May 2025 in an article titled “You are doing business with the Prime Minister’s younger brother. So you know what that means". We started investigating the case involving Áron Orbán’s associates of dubious background after an audio recording was leaked in which the former prime minister’s brother is heard speaking with Dávid Héjj, one of Viktor Orbán’s aides, at the Prime Minister’s Office. The audio recording revealed that Áron Orbán and his associates were involved with getting visas for guest workers, but that some of their visa applications were being blocked by the authorities.