Part I — Situation overview

In the criminal case around the central bank, the Hungarian National Bank (MNB), by 29 May 2026 the investigating authorities had seized roughly 91.8–92 billion forints of cash and securities, as well as several tens of terabytes of data — for now as evidence. At a joint background briefing of the Central Investigating Chief Prosecutor’s Office and the National Bureau of Investigation it was said: on suspicion of money laundering, a total of 97 private individuals, 36 companies and 11 private-equity funds (a closed-end asset-management construction intended for institutional investors) are under examination. Chief Prosecutor Pál Fürcht called the investigation “the biggest case of his life”; 444.hu quoted it in its headline as an “incomprehensibly huge case”. The scale of the case is conveyed by the fact that a thorough reading-through of the seized volume of data would already take a single person, working eight hours a day, 21 years.

The case’s antecedent is the years-long dispute over the central bank’s foundation system. The State Audit Office (ÁSZ — the institution overseeing state financial management) revealed, in several of its reports in March 2025, serious shortcomings around the MNB’s real-estate investments and the financial management of the Pallas Athéné Domus Meriti foundation, and, suspecting breach of trust, filed reports; the MNB’s new leadership itself also joined these. According to earlier press reports, the decisive part of one foundation’s assets melted away within a few years. The investigation runs on two threads: one is breach of trust, the other money laundering. The central bank, moreover, is loss-making in a purely financial sense too: it closed the year 2025 with a minus of 554 billion forints, and its equity still shows a deficit of nearly 1,400 billion forints — a burden that ultimately weighs on the central budget, that is, on the taxpayers.

In MIAK’s reading the question is not whether the central bank should be accountable — but that the accounting should take place in such a way that, meanwhile, central-bank independence as an institutional value is not damaged, and the investigation cannot appear to be a political settling of scores. Central-bank independence means the protection of monetary policy from day-to-day political pressure; it does not mean and never meant exemption from accounting for the use of public money. The basic problem of the present case is precisely that the legitimate principle of independence may have become distorted into unaccountability.

Part II — Literature audit

Before turning to MIAK’s concrete proposals, it is worth fixing the scholarly framework in which the case can be interpreted. According to the classic C = M + D − A formula of Robert Klitgaard (American economist, pioneer of the economic modelling of corruption), corruption (C) flourishes where the monopoly position (M) and broad discretionary power (D) meet the absence of accountability (A) — central-bank foundation asset management is affected in all three dimensions: a monopoly-position institution, with broad discretionary room for manoeuvre, alongside weak external accountability. According to the distinction of Susan Rose-Ackerman (American legal scholar and economist, leading researcher of the institutional analysis of corruption), corruption is most serious where high official discretion meets low accountability — this is a direct argument for the institutionalised transparency of central-bank asset management. The detailed literature treatment — by author, with quotations — can be found in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures that together ensure that the case serves the restoration of institutional guarantees, not the appearance of a political settling of scores.

3.1 Ensuring the impartiality and public accountability of the investigation (immediate, ongoing)

The key to the credibility of the criminal procedure is that it visibly follow a professional, not a political, logic. Here it is important to fix the legal framework: the prosecution service is an independent constitutional body, the Prosecutor General is elected by the National Assembly with a two-thirds majority, and the Government may not instruct it in a specific case either to investigate or to refrain from doing so. MIAK therefore does not propose that the government “direct” the investigation — quite the contrary: the independence of the procedure must be guaranteed against political influence in both directions. Concretely: regular prosecutorial briefing on the state of the investigation, without endangering the evidence; an itemised, public record of the seized assets; and, in Klitgaard’s C = M + D − A framework (see 6.4.1), the strengthening of the A (accountability) factor. Linked to this is the A5 whistleblower system, which, by protecting internal informants, serves the early uncovering of future cases.

3.2 Full screening and publication of the central-bank foundation assets (within 6 months)

The seizure in itself is a criminal-law act; the structural problem, however, is the opacity of the asset management. MIAK proposes the independent, auditor-led screening of the full asset range of the central-bank foundations — real estate, securities, private-equity-fund holdings — and the publication of the result in a public, searchable database. This fits the programme point on public-procurement and asset-management transparency (A2) and the financial-stability monitoring (G22), which tracks the systemic risks of private-equity funds and other lightly regulated financial constructions. Its timeliness is given by the fact that, according to press reports, the owners of private-equity funds will in any case have to be disclosed after 1 July 2026 — MIAK would extend this obligation to the full range of foundations. The goal is twofold: tracking the public money already spent, and preventing similar constructions from withdrawing public assets from parliamentary and audit-office control in the future.

3.3 Setting up an independent corruption-investigation institutional model (12–24 months)

The longest-term but most important proposal is setting up a corruption-investigation office independent of political cycles, modelled on the Singaporean CPIB (Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau) (A10). The essence of the model is that the investigating body’s mandate, budget and the appointment of its head are fixed in such a way that no single government can set the office aside or render it insignificant for the sake of a single case. In the Klitgaard frame (see 6.4.1) this is precisely the institutionalisation of the A factor: lasting, built-in accountability that does not depend on the political will of the day. It is important that such an office complement the existing prosecutorial and police competences, not call into question the constitutional independence of the prosecution service.

A common principle ties the three proposals together: central-bank independence can remain a credible value only if it is paired with hard, institutionalised accountability for the use of public money. Independence and accountability are not opposites but conditions of each other — this is also what the literature frame of Klitgaard and Rose-Ackerman formulates.

Part IV — Expected impacts and risks

Dimension Expected impact Risk
Economy Leading the seized public assets back; stricter monitoring of financial constructions stabilises the system Excessive regulatory strictness may deter legitimate institutional investors; settling the central-bank loss is a budgetary burden
Society An impartial, transparent procedure restores trust in public institutions Perceiving the investigation as a political settling of scores may deepen the divisions further
Public administration / justice A lasting institutional guarantee (an independent investigation office) against future abuses The new institution may itself be captured if the appointment guarantees are weak

The main dilemma is stretched between speed and rule-of-law guarantees. The public rightly expects substantive accountability, but a hasty procedure optimised for show damages precisely the credibility of the case: if the indictment fails because of evidentiary errors, or if the procedure appears to be political revenge, that discredits the anti-corruption cause as a whole. The proposals work if the impartiality is visible and the asset screening is independent — and tip to the risk side if political gain-seeking overrides the professional logic.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth tracking? (suggested KPIs)

The success of the proposals is worth tracking on the basis of a few concrete, suggested performance indicators (KPIs, in English: Key Performance Indicator) over a 12–24-month horizon:

  • The share of the roughly 92 billion forints seized that is led back to the public by a final judgment (target: a growing proportion of the confiscated part);
  • The time elapsed until indictment and the professional grounding of the charges (the proportion of charges that hold up in court);
  • The share of the central-bank foundation assets available publicly and searchably (target: 100% publication of the full asset range);
  • The pace at which the central-bank loss melts in the coming years’ reports (relative to the 554 billion forint minus of 2025).

We stress: these are suggested measurement points that are worth tracking — not government commitments.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s main message: the MNB affair is the test not of political revenge but of institutional restoration. It asks the decision-makers to guarantee the visible impartiality of the investigation, to screen and make public the central-bank foundation assets, and to begin setting up a cycle-independent corruption-investigation office. To the public the request is to hold to account not the volume of the announcements, but the measurable result — the reclaimed assets and the charges that hold up in court.

This topic moves two MIAK foundational values. Accountability is concerned because central-bank independence is legitimate only if the use of public money is rigorously accountable; and transparency, because making the asset management public is the only lasting protection against the silent withdrawal of public assets. It is precisely these values that move, because the root of the case is not a single crime, but the institutional room for manoeuvre withdrawn from public control.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 Press framing by spectrum

The left-liberal and public-affairs band (HVG, 444.hu, 24.hu) highlighted the magnitude of the seizure and the organisation coming to light — HVG wrote of an “MNB bank robbery” built up by a “multitude of lawyers and economic experts”, while 444.hu put Chief Prosecutor Pál Fürcht’s characterisation of an “incomprehensibly huge case” in its headline. 24.hu emphasised the dynamics of the procedure, the appearance of witnesses since the election. Several papers also drew attention to the fact that at the press briefing the name Matolcsy was not mentioned even once.

The economic band (Portfolio) chose a more matter-of-fact, numerical framing: it recorded the 91.8 billion forint seizure “for now as evidence” (signalling that seizure is not yet confiscation), and discussed the slow melting of the central-bank loss in a separate article — that is, the fiscal aspect of the topic. The conservative, pro-government band (Magyar Nemzet, Mandiner) did not raise the MNB affair into top focus on this day; among the examined headlines a substantive conservative framing of the topic did not appear, which is in itself telling about the framing asymmetry.

6.2 Facts and data

Data Value
Seized cash and securities (as evidence) approx. 91.8–92 billion HUF
Of which from private individuals 506 million HUF in total from 4 private individuals
Seized data several tens of terabytes
Private individuals examined on suspicion of money laundering 97
Companies examined 36
Private-equity funds examined 11
MNB’s 2025 loss 554 billion HUF (2024: 788.7 billion HUF)
MNB’s equity approx. −1,400 billion HUF

The source of the data is the press reports of 29 May 2026 (Portfolio, 444.hu, HVG, 24.hu). The legal status of the seizure is important: the seized assets serve for now as evidence, not as legally confiscated assets — the court decides on the final confiscation.

6.3 Policy aspects

  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — independent corruption investigation, whistleblowing and asset-management transparency are the gravitational centre of the topic;
  • Economy (programme points) — financial-stability monitoring and tracking the systemic risks of private-equity funds;
  • Justice (background material) — the independence of the prosecution service as an independent constitutional body and the impartiality of the criminal procedure.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption

Klitgaard traces corruption back to a simple relationship with a principal–agent–client logic: illicit behaviour proliferates where the agents have monopoly power over the clients, their discretionary remit is large, and their accountability is weak. From this follows the famous formula: corruption is the sum of monopoly and discretionary power, minus accountability (C = M + D − A). The key is not the opposition of state and market, but — in Klitgaard’s words — “competition and accountability”. In the case of central-bank foundation asset management this means that a public institution in a unique position managed assets deriving from public money with broad room for manoeuvre, while external, public accountability remained weak — precisely the configuration that Klitgaard describes as the most risky. The correction is therefore not primarily the removal of the discretionary power, but the institutional strengthening of the A factor, accountability.

📖 Source: Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption

6.4.2 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government

At the centre of Rose-Ackerman’s work stands the idea that corruption is most serious where high official discretion (the official’s broad freedom of decision) meets low accountability. She distinguishes large-scale abuses taking place at the top of power from low-level official bribery — remedying the former requires institutional-structural reform, not merely individual criminal-law action. Her argument is that the goal is to reduce the gains from abuse, not merely to remove the “rotten apples”. In this frame the MNB affair belongs to the high-discretion, institutional-level type: the lasting solution is therefore the institutionalisation of the transparency of asset management, not merely holding the individual culprits responsible.

📖 Source: Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform

6.5 International comparison

The Singaporean CPIB (Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau) referenced in proposal 3.3 is one of the most frequently cited examples in international practice of how the Klitgaard A (accountability) factor can be institutionalised: through its mandate protected by strong legal guarantees, the office operates independently of political cycles, and in the case of unjustified enrichment the burden of proof is reversed. As a European parallel, the Romanian National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) shows that an independent investigative body can achieve serious results in high-level cases — but the Romanian experience also warns that such an institution may itself come under political pressure if the guarantees are weak. The two examples together support the point that it is not the mere existence of the institution, but the quality of the appointment and budgetary independence that decides.

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A10 — Independent Corruption-Investigation Office (CPIB model)
  • A5 — Whistleblower system
  • A2 — Public-procurement transparency

Economy

  • G22 — Financial-stability monitoring and shadow-banking regulation

6.7 Source register

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 30 May 2026 — topic 4):

Knowledge-base references (literature):

  • 📖 Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption
  • 📖 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform

Note: the visible text of the blog does not show the books’ local file path — only the author and title. The file path is an internal matter of the generation process, not the reader’s.

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A10)
  • MIAK policy area: Economy (programme points; programme point ID: G22)
  • MIAK policy area: Justice (background material)
  • MIAK press monitor, 30 May 2026 — topic 4, score: 79/100

Additional public data sources:

  • State Audit Office (ÁSZ) — MNB foundation audit reports
  • MNB annual report (2025); K-Monitor / Átlátszó public-asset databases

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