All of Hungary was stunned in the spring of 2025 when it became clear that hundreds of billions of forints' (a bit more than one billion euros) worth of assets had disappeared from the Hungarian National Bank's foundation while György Matolcsy, a former minister and long-time ally of Viktor Orbán had served as governor of the Hungarian National Bank (MNB). On top of that, this was determined by an official body, the State Audit Office.
Since then, hundreds of articles have been written about the MNB scandal in the independent press, and at Telex, we decided it would be useful to summarize the gist of this complex case in a documentary. In The Big Scheme, we show how the Matolcsy family's business circles enveloped the structures surrounding the central bank stuffed with public funds, and how the Hungarian state passively watched the whole thing play out. The Big Scheme provides useful insight to anyone curious about the astonishing methods that can be used to convert vast amounts of public money into private wealth, even at the state institution responsible for the integrity of a country's financial system, when the rule of law and transparency are being eroded.
Credits:
Fruzsina Előd – writer-editor
Máté Szilágyi – director-editor
Noémi Gombos – camera
Ágnes Bozsó – camera
Dániel Simor – field reporter
Krisztián Bánszki (Szegeder) – field reporter
Barna Bakos – studio
Tamás Szilli – cinematographer
András Dezső – featured guest
Laura Döbrösi – featured guest
Máté Fillér – animation
Bátor Tóth – studio
Péter Somogyi – cover image/poster
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