The prime minister’s 14 years younger brother, \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n has not taken a public role yet, but has been posting a series of public posts on social media for years. They usually show him indulging in hobbies such as gardening, cooking stew, tinkering or flying planes, and he also occasionally shares melodious Russian music. Some of his posts also hint at his business activities.<\/p>\n
In a video from last autumn, for example, you can see him in a patterned shirt making a butter-cream scone sandwich with cheese and cold cuts, while a cheerful sramli-music plays. Two striking details of the video are that the sandwiches are made from Norbert Schobert’s Update brand of low-carb food, and that there is a gun on the kitchen counter while Orb\u00e1n uses a military knife to spread the cream cheese on the scones.<\/p>\n
After our article was published, \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n’s Facebook page became inaccessible, so this video is no longer available.<\/em><\/p>\n In this way, the prime minister’s brother is perfectly combining the two areas in which he is currently active: his special interest in weapons and his involvement in Norbert Schobert’s business.<\/p>\n Orb\u00e1n became a board member of Norbi Update Lowcarb Zrt. this spring, a company targeting the market for low-carbohydrate, weight-loss foods. This is not his only connection to the company: his Croatian company, Circles of Angels and Devils d.o.o. runs the Update Nivo store in Cs\u00e1ktornya, Croatia. Although there is no evidence that Norbi Update has any state contracts, the company had other links to government circles even before \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n joined. Mikl\u00f3s \u00d3moln\u00e1r, one of the leaders of the pro-government media company Mediaworks, has been a board member of the company for nearly 8 years. A few months ago, Schobert was interviewed by Ripost, which is edited by \u00d3moln\u00e1r, about his approval of the government’s reaction to the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n also regularly advertises a gun shop in Dunakeszi called Global Arms Hungary on his Facebook page. The prime minister’s brother does not appear to be either an owner or an official of the company behind the shop, Multi Shoot Zrt., but obviously there is a connection between the company and him. He has referred to it as his own in social media posts, he also built one of the company’s shooting ranges partly himself, and several branches of the business are located on his land.<\/p>\n This company already has a number of state ties. Last year, it won 9 million HUF in EU funding for business development through a tender, and it has a stake in a security company that has won several high-value public contracts in recent years. Its founder-owner, gynaecologist N\u00e1ndor T\u0171zk\u0151, is also a member of the supervisory board of several state-owned fertility centres.<\/p>\n \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n previously had a business interest that was involved in large public projects. For a long time, he was the owner of a company with a turnover of billions of HUF, formerly known as Neh\u00e9z K\u0151 Kft. and now as FuvarozNak Kft., which was also involved in projects related to state investments, as Direkt36 has revealed in its series of articles on the Orb\u00e1n family.<\/p>\n On the outskirts of Sz\u00e9cs\u00e9nke, N\u00f3gr\u00e1d county, just a few hundred metres from the highway, a previously bushy, wooded area has been converted into a car-accessible road and glade. Although there is no sign, this is where the shooting range complex of Multi Shoot Zrt. is being built, about which \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n regularly uploads photos and videos. These show how the terrain is evolving, partly by the own hands of Orb\u00e1n. The land is owned by \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n and is also the registered site of Multi Shoot Zrt., the arms trading company founded in 2019.<\/p>\n With net sales of between 90 and 120 million HUF per year, the company is not a significant business. They are mainly involved in the arms trade, offering weapons, land and water combat vehicles and even bombs through their catalogues. They have also obtained NATO supplier status, a status held by hundreds of similar companies in Hungary. They also have accredited training and construction services and are currently building their own firing range complex. Although his name is not officially listed among the company’s officers, the Prime Minister’s brother is closely linked to the company.<\/p>\n \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n is not only the owner of the land in Sz\u00e9cs\u00e9nke that will be home to the future shooting range, but Multi Shoot’s F\u00f3t branch is registered to his home address, and he previously owned another branch of the company in Z\u00e1moly. Multi Shoot’s logo of crowns, wings and arms is a protected trademark, registered by \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n, according to the database of the National Intellectual Property Office. Orb\u00e1n has made it clear on social media that he considers Multi Shoot his own.\u00a0 In one of his posts in April 2020, for example, he wrote: “We sell defence and police equipment. Our website: www.multishoot.hu www.globalarmshungary.com”<\/p>\n Despite all this, the founder and sole owner of Multi Shoot is not him, but gynaecologist N\u00e1ndor T\u0171zk\u0151. In 2020, he became a member of the supervisory board of four state-owned fertility centres, nationalised just a few months earlier: Forg\u00e1cs Int\u00e9zet Eg\u00e9szs\u00e9g\u00fcgyi \u00e9s Szolg\u00e1lat\u00f3 Kft., DUNAMENTI REK Reprodukci\u00f3s K\u00f6zpont Kft. (former Ka\u00e1li Int\u00e9zet), V\u00e1rand\u00f3s Eg\u00e9szs\u00e9g\u00fcgyi Szolg\u00e1ltat\u00f3 Kft. and Sterilitas Eg\u00e9szs\u00e9g\u00fcgyi Ell\u00e1t\u00f3 Kft..<\/p>\n In 2019, the state started the acquisition of several fertility centres, and then a decree was issued that from July 2022, special procedures for human reproduction, i.e. fertility treatments, can only be carried out in state institutions. In response to a question from Direkt36, the former owner and head of the Ka\u00e1li Institute, Dr. G\u00e9za Ka\u00e1li Nagy, said that T\u0171zk\u0151 was already present in 2019 at the negotiations on the purchase of the institute.<\/p>\n “N\u00e1ndor T\u0171zk\u0151 was there alongside Deputy State Secretary K\u00e1roly F\u00e1bi\u00e1n. I asked that in what capacity T\u0171zk\u0151 was present and was told that he was an economic expert.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In addition to fertility clinics, T\u0171zk\u0151 is also an expert member of the board of directors of MKB-Pann\u00f3nia Eg\u00e9szs\u00e9gp\u00e9nzt\u00e1r. This non-profit organisation providing cash services is a service of MKB Bank, a bank connected to L\u0151rinc M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros.<\/p>\n In addition to his involvement in state-owned companies and his committee membership, T\u0171zk\u0151 has other ties to pro-government business actors. Until 2020, he was a co-owner of a company called QPharma Nutrition, and was a business partner of M\u00e1rk Szever\u00e9nyi for nearly seven years. Szever\u00e9nyi is the brother-in-law of former Mediaworks CEO and then pharmaceuticals minister L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Szab\u00f3, and his name became known in connection with the state procurement related to the pandemic. He was the CEO of the company, which owned Fourcardinal Consulting Ltd. which was contracted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in April 2020 for nearly 50 billion HUF. The contracts were for a 17 billion HUF purchase of ventilators and a 32 billion HUF purchase of medical protective equipment.<\/p>\n Although Multi Shoot Zrt. has not yet received any government orders, in 2021 it won 9 million HUF in EU funding for business development under the Sz\u00e9chenyi 2020 programme. The company is also a 10 percent shareholder in Bank Biztons\u00e1g Bizalom Zrt., which has won several public contracts for guarding and protection services worth hundreds of millions of HUF.<\/p>\n According to the project description, the 9 million grant will be used for training and machinery purchases at the company’s branch in Z\u00e1moly. Although no work is currently being carried out on this 9000-square-metre site on the outskirts of Z\u00e1moly, its location is unique: it is in the immediate vicinity of the Orb\u00e1n-mine, within sight of it. The trucks rolling out of the mine pass by the former petrol station on the site. \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n bought the land at auction in 2017 and gifted it to his father, Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Sr. Today, however, the land no longer belongs to the Orb\u00e1n family: it was bought from them in February 2021 by a liquidator named Mih\u00e1ly Koller. Nevertheless, the land remains the premises of Multi Shoot Zrt.<\/p>\n Koller works as a liquidator for the state-owned National Reorganisation Non-profit Ltd. This organisation coordinates the bankruptcy and liquidation procedures of strategically important business organisations on behalf of the state. Koller has several ongoing cases, and he handled for example the liquidation of ETO Park Ltd, an important member of the Quaestor empire that went bankrupt in 2015, with assets<\/a> of more than 8 billion HUF.<\/p>\n \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n has previously held positions in several family businesses, alongside his father or younger brother, Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Sr. or Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. He was the founder and for many years the owner of a company established in 2004 as Ide\u00e1lis \u00c1ron Bt. By 2015, the company had already generated revenues of 1.6 billion HUF and, as Direkt36 revealed<\/a>, was involved in projects related to public investments. Orb\u00e1n also founded another company in 2016, NAKK International Raw Materials and Finished Products Trading Ltd, but just over a year later, in 2017, he withdrew from both companies and had no domestic business interests until 2022.<\/p>\n That changed after he met Norbert Schobert at a car event on the Hungaroring two years ago. According to a source, who asked not to be named and who knew the details of the relationship, it was an interest in cars that brought the two businessmen together, and they subsequently had several ideas for cooperation.<\/p>\n Orb\u00e1n became a board member of Norbi Update Lowcarb Zrt. in May 2022, but according to Direkt36’s research, they became business partners through a Croatian company even earlier than that. Orb\u00e1n is the founding owner of Circles of Angels and Devils d.o.o., a company registered in Croatia in 2019. This company is listed on the website of Update Nivo, the Croatian branch of Norbi Update, as the seller and rights holder of the website. According to a source speaking to Direkt36, the company owns the franchise rights of Update. Circles of Angels and Devils operates an Update store in Cs\u00e1ktornya, near the Hungarian border.<\/p>\n According to the source, the opening of the store in the small town of the Murak\u00f6z region was an unusual decision from a business point of view, as Norbi Update Lowcarb Zrt. usually tries to open its stores in larger cities and busy places. Based on marketing announcements and social media posts, trading in Croatia could start in early 2022. Following the opening, the Schobert couple posted a video from Cs\u00e1ktornya on Instagram. In this video, it was not mentioned who would operate the store, and there is also no mention of the opening of the Croatian store on \u00c1ron Orb\u00e1n’s Facebook page.<\/p>\n According to local business records, Circles of Angels and Devils is a low-turnover business, which in 2021 had a turnover of 9 million HUF and was loss-making.<\/p>\nBehind the guns<\/h2>\n
From Cs\u00e1ktornya to Tura<\/h2>\n