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EU officials working for OLAF who had traveled to Hungary were physically followed during car journeys and had their phones tapped.
Hungary's intelligence agency spied on EU officials visiting the country, searched their hotel rooms and recorded their phone conversations, according to a bombshell report.
A joint investigation by Direkt36 and De Tijd revealed that Hungary's Information Office (IH), Budapest's equivalent of the CIA, targeted investigators at the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), which at one point was seeking a Hungarian company owned by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's son-in-law.
The report by Hungarian investigative media center Direkt36 and Belgian newspaper De Tijd cited examples between 2015 and 2017 in which EU officials working for OLAF who had traveled to Hungary were physically followed during car journeys and their phones were tapped.
The report adds that it is common practice for Hungary's spy agency to search the hotel rooms of visiting EU delegations and download information from their laptops.
Contacted by POLITICO, Bertalan Havasi, Orban's office press chief, said: "We don't deal with fake news."
Budapest has long been accused of hacking the phones of journalists, activists and opposition figures, with a Hungarian lawmaker admitting in 2021 that the government had bought Israeli spyware. Earlier this year, a member of parliament critical of Hungary was also targeted in a cyber attack.
An OLAF spokesman said the agency does not comment on specific allegations, but they stressed the importance of being able to carry out its investigations into fraud, corruption and any other illegal activity affecting the financial interests of the European Union without hindrance.
"We remain committed to carrying out our mission, with our operational partners, impartially and in full respect of the rule of law ," the OLAF spokesperson told POLITICO.
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