![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/boldvai_hazauto\u0301-1020x447.jpg\")
<\/a>The family house and the wife’s car – Source: Direkt36<\/p><\/div>\n
In 2008, Tanka Ltd. acquired ownership in a Hungarian company, C.I.P. II Befektet\u00e9si Ltd. C.I.P. II is no longer operational but at that time its main official activity was buying and selling real estate owned by the company. The minority owner and the manager of the company was a man named Bal\u00e1zs Veres. We visited him at his address. He told us through the intercom to send our questions in e-mail, which we did, but he has not responded to them.<\/p>\n
C.I.P II was liquidated in April 2012 but its owner, Tanka, continued to operate. In November that year, Konti appeared on the register of shareholder of Tanka Ltd. According to the leaked documents, Sieber Consulting, a Swiss consulting company remained with Tanka, and acted in the name of Konti after she had become the owner.<\/p>\n
Like driving a Ferrari<\/h2>\n
The Panama Papers do not contain information on the business performance of Tanka Ltd but there are some hints about the financial dealings of the company.<\/p>\n
Tanka had a bank account at Bank Vontobel, a Swiss private bank specialized on wealthy customers. \u201cBank Vontobel is an elegant and traditional Swiss private bank,\u201d a Hungarian private banking expert told Direkt36. He explained the difference between regular banks and private banks with a car metaphor: \u201cIf you sit in a regular Ford it\u2019s OK. But then if you sit in a Ferrari you will feel the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
High quality services come at a price at Vontobel. A Hungarian fund manager told us that the fees at banks like Vontobel are the double of the private bank fees in Hungary. While Hungarian private banks require around 160-320 thousand euros as a minimum amount to open a bank account, Swiss private banks ask for double or triple of this. However, customers usually have much larger amounts on their accounts, said the manager of a Hungarian private banking service.<\/p>\n
Bank Vontobel declined to disclose their minimum amount policy, and by referring to Swiss laws it refused to answer our questions concerning Tanka Ltd.<\/p>\n
Boldvai did not answer our questions about the Swiss bank account and Tanka Ltd\u2019s financial transactions either. However, registry court documents revealed that the company had transactions worth hundreds of thousands of euros during its existence. Tanka agreed to pay 151 thousand euros for the shares of C.I.P II Ltd. According to Hungarian registry court documents, Tanka later injected more than 488 thousand euros into C.I.P. II, partly as a shareholder loan, and partly as additional capital contribution. This latter is necessary, for example, when a company is making loss and runs out of its original capital.<\/p>\n
C.I.P. II folded in April 2012. Liquidation documents show that Tanka became eligible to a 254 thousand euros repayment from the money it had lent to C.I.P. On November 21 2012, Tanka asked to transfer half of the money in USD and other half in euro to two separate foreign currency bank accounts at Vontobel Bank. The exact same day Konti became the owner of Tanka Ltd..<\/p>\n
Documents of the financial transaction do not specify whether the two bank accounts belonged to Tanka. From the Panama papers it is clear that Tanka was still the customer of Vontobel at the time of the transaction.<\/p>\n
Tanka most likely also folded. In May 2013, Sieber Consulting told the law firm, which registered Tanka, that their customer would like to terminate the business. It is not clear if the termination took place indeed because neither Boldvai nor Sieber Consulting answered our questions.<\/p>\n
From the broker scandal to the villa in Salg\u00f3tarj\u00e1n<\/h2>\n
This is not the first time when the Boldvais\u2019 finances make headlines. In 2003, Index.hu reported that Boldvai\u2019s wife was the customer of K&H Equities, a brokerage firm embroiled then in a large embezzlement case. Boldvai confirmed Index\u2019s information but emphasized that his wife was not a VIP customer and did not even have her account with the main character of the scandal, Attila Kulcs\u00e1r.<\/p>\n
A few years later, Boldvai\u2019s family appeared in the news again, this time because of the huge mansion they built in Salg\u00f3tarj\u00e1n, their hometown in North-Eastern Hungary. Boldvai reported the house first in his 2008 wealth declaration. According to the document, the 1050 square meter house was built on a 3000 square meter plot. Newspaper articles at the time questioned whether Boldvai could afford to build and maintain such an enormous house.<\/p>\n
Consequently, questions about Boldvai\u2019s financial situation landed in front of the parliament\u2019s immunity committee. The president of the committee \u2013 also a politician of the socialist party \u2013 decided, however, not to launch a wealth examination procedure.\u00a0 <\/span>He said that Boldvai\u2019s previous wealth declarations and further information provided by him revealed that he had enough sources to build such a house from selling real estate, his savings and a loan.<\/p>\nBoldvai virtually never had any other job than being a politician, and in the past two decades his main income was his salary as an MP. Before the regime change he was a trader at the Salg\u00f3tarj\u00e1n Metallurgic Works, and between 1999 and 2001 he was the manager of an Austrian tech company\u2019s Hungarian subsidiary, states Boldvai in his CV.<\/p>\n
Bad salary, good savings<\/h2>\n
Parliamentary representatives had to file wealth declarations for the first time in 1997. In that document, Boldvai\u2019s only asset was a 50 percent ownership in a house in Salg\u00f3tarj\u00e1n. His 1998 wealth declaration was the same but according to his next one from 2001 his wealth situation hugely improved in merely three years. He kept the Salg\u00f3tarj\u00e1n real estate, and acquired half of a 1800 square meter parcel in Szentendre \u2013 an elegant town near Budapest -, a BMW car and 106 thousand euros in savings.<\/p>\n
Boldvai managed to achieve all this even though between 1998 and 2001 he earned only 46 thousand euros before taxes as an MP and an additional 38 thousand euros before taxes as the representatives of the Austrian technological company. This is less than the 106 thousand euros that he saved up during the same period, not to mention that meanwhile he bought a precious parcel and a car.<\/p>\n
There was a similar wealth growth between 2004 and 2005 as well. During the year Boldvai\u2019s only income was his salary from the parliament, around 36 800 euros before taxes. Nevertheless, he bought another BMW (he sold the previous one in 2002) and saved 18 200 euros. The car\u2019s production year and exact type was not included in his wealth disclosure.<\/p>\n
In 2006, his only income was once again his salary, but he managed to buy a 3000 square meter parcel in Salg\u00f3tarj\u00e1n with his wife, and saved 16 thousand euros. He didn\u2019t sell any of his previously acquired assets.<\/p>\n
Two years later the 1050 square meter villa of the Boldvais was completed. As Boldvai explained to his fellow party member heading the immunity committee, he financed the construction by selling their previous house, the parcel in Szentendre and by borrowing 64 thousand euros from a private person. He didn\u2019t pay back a single euro from this loan until his parliamentary career ended in 2014.<\/p>\n
Driving a BMW to the local school<\/h2>\n
Even though the outrage stirred by the luxury house calmed down after a while, the scandal left a mark on Boldvai\u2019s popularity in the town. \u201cSalg\u00f3tarj\u00e1n is a really leftist city with a lot of underclass people,\u201d told a former local political ally of Boldvai to Direkt36. It did not help his image that his wife was seen driving expensive cars. \u201cNot a lot of teachers drive a black BMW to school,\u201d said the former ally.<\/p>\n
Direkt36 also witnessed as Konti got into the latest model of the BMW X5 in front of the school in February. BMW released this model at the end of 2013. The cheapest version costs around 48 thousand euros, but judging from its external details Konti\u2019s car is a more expensive one. A new one from this version costs around 58-60 thousand euros.<\/p>\n
Boldvai didn\u2019t answer our questions concerning his wife\u2019s car and wealth. Even though he lives in a huge house and has a luxury car, Boldvai tries to project the image of someone who feels the problems of the poor. In 2013, he participated in the \u201cHunger March\u201d, where the protesters demanded from the government to raise the salary of public workers from 156 euros to 192.<\/p>\n
![\"L\u00e1szl\u00f3](\"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Boldvai_20e\u0301v-1020x600.jpg\")
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