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
'THE HUNGARIAN MAFIA' continued thereafter. In 1951, for example, Nyerges had difficult negotiations with the Swiss partners on Hungary’s wishes to discontinue the delivery of crude oil products and predominantly export wheat instead.149 Hungary transported significant volumes of oil to Europe through Maszovol; according to the CIA, around 125,000 tonnes of crude oil were planned to be exported from the Soviet zone in 1948, mainly from Russian and Romanian sources, to the West. The oil was relayed by the Hungarian company, clearly with the intention of generating hard currency for the Soviets.150 149 ÁBTL 3.2.1 Bt-481/1 p. 89 Negotiations in Switzerland, 11 September 1951 150 CIA, FOIA, Hungarian Trade Policies, 13 July 1948 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R001600880005-7.pdf (Downloaded on: 21 August 2019) 151 ÁBTL 3.1.2 M-14967, p. 235. Report, 3 March 1960 Switzerland continued to be of immense significance for Hungarian foreign trade as the financial hub provided investors with a favourable legal environment. From the early 1970s, Hungarian legislation opened up the opportunity for Hungarian companies to establish businesses in capitalist countries without any special approval. The subsidiaries founded in this way were keen to set up further enterprises, most of them registered in tax havens and therefore operated as offshore companies. One of the most popular countries to register companies was Switzerland. Some of the companies operating in the alpine country were recurring subjects of various state security reports, which implies they were important foreign trade partners for socialist Hungary. The Lausannebased company André started appearing in documents as a privileged partner at least from the early 1960s. János Fekete suspected it was highly likely that this economic cooperation was founded on corruption.151 Although we know little about the owners of André for now, it seems fairly certain that they had close ties to the management of the Hungarian Foreign Trade Bank: the head of the company, Friedrich Schenk, conducted negotiations in the MKB building when he arrived in Hungary. Andrés privileged position is of interest not only in relation to Hungary, but also to the Western world: ‘ André, a leading company across the world, has been working unobstructed with socialist countries and may also make transit deals following accession to the Common Market. The 57
