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’ - A Cold War Hungaricum
'THE HUNGARIAN MAFIA' A Cold War Hungaricum The idea of re-exporting is that a third-country party, the re-exporter, steps into the trade between the two countries, acting as the buyer on the import side and the seller on the export side. Re-exporters do not change a thing about the sold product, they only deal with the paperwork; often the given consignment does not even enter their own country, instead it is sent directly from the seller to the buyer. The profit for the intermediary either comes from a commission, or from the difference in the price paid to the importer and the price collected from the exporter. In the midst of the Cold War it was extremely important to be able to conceal the country of origin using re-exporting transactions, because if the goods entered the country of the intermediary firm, i.e. the delivery was not made directly between the two parties to the business transaction, then the goods could be repackaged and the papers changed - or neutralised’, as this procedure was referred to in foreign trade. This meant western companies were able to circumvent the strict embargo regulations as they were only in direct contact with the intermediary. Officially, they did not need to know anything about the actual buyer, and very often, they did not actually have any knowledge of the transaction. Re-exporting can be a reasonable decision, of course, to optimise business. If an exporter unfamiliar with the market engages an intermediary who knows the laws of the importing country, or if the exporter does not wish to waste time and energy on market research, it can sell its goods to an intermediary firm that pays for the goods immediately, and the rest is the responsibility of the new owner. Transiting worked in a similar way, but this sort of commercial transaction was designed specifically to get around trade policy, the intermediary person or company received the commission anyway, and the contracting parties always knew each other, as outwitting the system was the name of the game.227 227 For more details on the special foreign trade transactions see: Törzsök 2008 81
