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 secret man behind the scenes: János Nyerges
FABULOUS SPY GAMES office. At the time, he was carrying out assignments for the Economic Policing Department of Budapest Police Headquarters fon a comrade-to-comrade basis”,136 but this body was before long integrated into the State Protection Authority of the Ministry of the Interior (BMÁVH), so, from the autumn of 1948 onwards, Nyerges performed his duties as a resident officer of state protection. In addition, it was also his job to keep an eye on the business deals concluded by foreign trade companies and to monitor the activities of company representatives abroad. He was primarily assigned to gather economic news, but he was also tasked with obtaining military information: he was supposed to keep an eye on the facilities manufacturing military goods.137 136 ÁBTL 3.2.1 Bt-481/1, p. 3 Information sheet, 28 April 1950 137 ÁBTL 3.2.1 Bt-481/1, p. 6 Note, 25 April 1950 138 Pál 2013 139 Ibid. 140 ÁBTL 3.2.1 Bt-481/1, p. 19 Report, 11 October 1950 Nyerges had an important part to play in the preparation of the MAORT lawsuit: he collected evidence relating to Zoltán Gombosi s illegal business in Switzerland, which eventually brought the mineral oil commissioner down. A social democrat, Gombosi held the post from 1 April 1945 and tried to influence oil production at the oil fields in Zala county to his own and his party’s benefit, which ended up in a conflict with the leadership of the Communist Party.138 Gombosi concluded an oil supply agreement with the Swiss-based Erpag Erdöl Producte AG in 1946, but he unilaterally changed the terms of the agreement without informing the Parties involved, thus misleading both the Swiss company and the Hungarian oil concern.139 The main problem, however, was that there was no coverage for the contracted oil, because that oil had to be transported to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, presumably as compensation.140 Gombosi was controlling the Hungarian oil industry as a social democrat, so he was in the crosshairs of the Communist Party regardless of whether or not he had committed economic crimes. For the communists systematically sovietising Hungary, conducting the MAORT lawsuit, one in a series of large-scale economic lawsuits, mainly served the purpose of taking over the company, partially in foreign ownership, and of acquiring control 54
