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Ukrainian Minister Accuses Hungary of Kidnapping Seven Bank Employees
Escalating tensions
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Hungary of kidnapping seven employees from Oschadbank and seizing $75 million in cash and gold.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Hungary of kidnapping seven employees from Oschadbank and seizing $75 million in cash and gold.
EU Reaction
The European Commission is monitoring the situation closely and may consider potential sanctions against Hungary based on developments surrounding the alleged hostage situation.
The European Commission is monitoring the situation closely and may consider potential sanctions against Hungary based on developments surrounding the alleged hostage situation.
Investigation update
Hungary’s National Tax and Customs Administration has launched a criminal investigation into alleged money laundering related to the intercepted cash convoy.
Hungary’s National Tax and Customs Administration has launched a criminal investigation into alleged money laundering related to the intercepted cash convoy.
Key developments
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Hungary of kidnapping seven employees of Oschadbank alongside assets valued at $75 million. Kyiv reported losing contact with the staff.
Hungary’s National Tax and Customs Administration launched a money laundering investigation, detailing the arrest of the Ukrainians and the seizure of two armoured cash trucks for transporting cash and gold.
In response to recent tensions, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning, advising citizens to avoid Hungary, citing concerns over their safety amidst ongoing arbitrary actions by Hungarian authorities.
Read in Full
Ukraine accuses Hungary of seizing bank convoy carrying gold, cash and staff
Published on •Updated
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has accused Hungary of kidnapping seven employees of a Ukrainian state savings bank alongside a large amount of cash and gold.
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According to Ukraine’s Oschadbank, a van carrying personnel and some $75 million (€65 million) was intercepted in central Budapest. The vehicle was transporting cash from Austria to Ukraine. Kyiv says it has lost all contact with the van’s staff.
The incident signals a dramatic escalation in already angry relations between the two countries, a day after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traded accusations and referenced the possible use of force.
“In Budapest, Hungarian authorities took seven Ukrainian citizens hostage,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Sybiha said in a post on X. “In fact, we are talking about Hungary taking hostages and stealing money,” he added.
Sybiha released another statement in the morning, saying Hungary did not provide any information about Ukrainians “taken hostage in Budapest”.
“We demand their immediate release and prepare next actions, including at the EU level” the minister said.
In another tweet, Sybiha referred to the events as “state terrorism.”
Hungary launches money laundering investigation
Oschadbank has released a statement calling for the release of its employees and describing Hungary’s actions as unjustified.
“Oschadbank demands the immediate release of its employees and property and their return to Ukraine,” the statement said.
According to the bank, the trucks carried $40 million, €35 million and 9kg of gold. It added that the convoy was organised in agreement with Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank.
“The cargo was registered in accordance with international transportation rules and current European customs procedures,” the bank insisted
Hungary’s National Tax and Customs Administration, meanwhile, issued a statement of its own saying that a criminal investigation into alleged money laundering has been launched.
The statement says that on 5 March, seven Ukrainian nationals were arrested, including a former Ukrainian intelligence general, with two armoured cash trucks also seized.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó also issued a statement directed at Kyiv.
“The government demands immediate answers and explanations from Ukraine on the cash shipments through Hungary. The question arises whether this is the money from the Ukrainian war mafia,” Szijjártó said.
Witnesses told Hungarian press that the raid was conducted overnight in a highway parking facility by Hungary’s anti-terror police TEK.
Ukraine issued a travel warning for Ukrainians
Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a travel warning telling Ukrainians to avoid transiting Hungary if possible.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs recommends that Ukrainian citizens refrain from travelling to Hungary due to the lack of guarantees of their safety against the backdrop of arbitrary actions by the Hungarian authorities,” the statement says, asking Ukrainians to look for other transit routes.
Budapest and Kyiv are locked in a bitter row over the shutdown of the Druzhba pipeline carrying cheap Russian oil to Hungary through Ukraine. The pipeline was struck in a suspected Russian attack in late January and has not been repaired since.
Hungary has accused Ukraine of using the issue for political blackmail.
On Thursday, Orbán suggested Hungary would get the oil flows back and vowed to end he described as a “blockade” by force if necessary. Zelensky snapped back saying he could send Ukrainian soldiers to his address and “let them speak to him in their own language”.
Hungary is preparing for parliamentary elections in April.
October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
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@MahaGaza
: the real number exceeds 400,000
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To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.
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November 23, 2024
8:25 am
Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.
The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.
During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.
Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.
Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.
Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
November 23, 2024
8:17 am
Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.
The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.
At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.
“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.
It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.
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