Borvendég Zsuzsanna: Fabulous Spy Games. How international trade networks with the West developed after 1945 - A Magyarságkutató Intézet Kiadványai 24. (Budapest, 2021)
‘THE HUNGARIAN MAFIA’ - The red octopus
'THE HUNGARIAN MAFIA' communist movement, and was appointed, out of gratitude, as head of the Hungarian Foreign Trade Bank in 1960. The CIA mentions as Gáls right-hand man György Oblath, who resided in Switzerland and represented Ligimpex.120 György Oblath was a key figure of the foreign trade lobby that later emerged; and although the state security documents on him were destroyed during the revolution, we know for a fact from Hungarian sources that he was helping the political police from the 1950s onwards as a member of the network under the cover name of ‘ PetneháziT21 Later, Oblath was posted abroad several times: he worked as a trade adviser in India and later in Rome as a committed source for military intelligence, a member of MNVK-2; and, from the mid-1970s onwards, he was the CEO of a strategic company, Intercoop eration Rt.122 Intercooperation was in charge of cooperation with Siemens, among others, further information on this is provided in a subsequent chapter. No Hungarian sources survived on Oblaths early secret service activities, at least none can be found among the documents currently researchable, which makes CIA information invaluable. According to American intelligence, Oblath too was in charge of secret purchases in Switzerland in the late 1940s, when he purchased military-grade automotive and radio equipment for the Soviet Bloc.123 120 CIA, FOIA, Hungarian Economic Activities in Western Europe, 17 November 1949 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R003600470003-2.pdf (Downloaded on: 16 August 2019) 121 ÁBTL 3.2.1. Bt-463, p. 19 Service request, 1 August 1961 122 For more details, cf. Borvendég 2017 123 CIA, FOIA, Hungarian Economic Activities in Western Europe, 17 November 1949 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R003600470003-2.pdf (Downloaded on: 16 August 2019 American intelligence considered Sándor Sebes to be one of the key players in the Hungarian communist activities in Switzerland. He did not participate in the purchases himself, but was named as the man who managed Hungarian financial and banking transactions, purchased foreign currencies, and was in charge of distributing and transporting the sums received in Switzerland from Hungarian deals. He is said to have carried the money in suitcases to the 49
