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The Hungarian t anti-corruption Átlátszó website has published a report this week suggesting that the Orbán government’s motivation for handing back to Azerbaijan Ramil Safarov, the Azeri axe murderer convicted of killing an Armenian army lieutenant in Hungary, may have been financial gain, the Hungarian Free Press reported.

To remind, in 2012, Hungary earned global scorn for transferring the murderer to home. The 35-year-old Safarov was treated as a hero upon his return, promoted to major and given an apartment and back pay for his years in jail.

According the source, the scandal, which extends far beyond Hungary, involves a complex money laundering scheme tied to Azerbaijan and first uncovered by journalists at Denmark’s Berlingske publication. Using a network of British businesses, Azerbaijan’s ruling political elite maintained a secret slush fund worth 2.9 billion dollars. The slush fund was used to buy luxury goods, buy off politicians and journalists in Europe and engage in money laundering. An estimated 16,000 transactions were made from the secret fund. Ilham Aliyev’s dictatorship aimed to reward journalists and politicians abroad who spoke favourably of his regime and who denied the severe human rights and rule of law violations.

In 2012, at precisely the same time that Hungary released Safarov, more than $7 million was deposited into a bank account opened at Hungary’s MKB Bank, under the name of the son of an Azeri politician. The account was linked to an offshore company that folded in 2015 and which had been closely tied to Azerbaijan’s government. The money that arrived in Hungary was transferred by a firm called Metastar Invest LLP to a Hungarian bank account linked to Velasco International Inc.

The transfer of $7 million into the mysterious MKB Bank account coincided with an improvement in diplomatic relations between Hungary and Azerbaijan. In 2014, Viktor Orbán met with President Aliyev in Budapest, where the two leaders signed a strategic partnership. A mere four months later, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Péter Szijjártó met with Azeri Minister of Youth and Sports, Azad Ragimov, in Budapest. Most recently in July 2017, Mr. Szijjártó met with Elmar Mammadyarov, Azerbaijan’s foreign minister in Budapest.

It was Metastar Invest LLP that prosecutors in Italy charge sent payments to Luca Volonte, the Vice President of the European People’s Party. Mr. Volonte was not only a friend of Azerbaijan, but also of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, referring to criticism of the Orbán regime as nothing more than a “witch hunt.”

Velasco International Inc, which maintained the Hungarian bank account, had deep connections to Hungary and to Azerbaijan. Velasco is registered in the British Virgin Islands, and one of its shareholders is Nothingham Holding Ltd., an offshore firm tied to the Bahamas. Reportedly, it was the son of the Azeri deputy prime minister, Orkhan Ejjubov, that played a key role in getting Nothingham Holding Ltd to buy shares in Velasco. A member of the infuential Ejjubov family served as the director of a company based in Baku called ILREM MMCA, which reportedly conducted business with Velasco. This Azeri company, however, was co-owned by a firm registered in Budapest called CEU-REM Zrt., since renamed to Remint Zrt.  In this endless web, Remint’s subsidiary is a Hungarian pharmaceutical firm called Papaver Gyógyszeralapanyag-gyártó Zrt. According to Átlátszó, a member of the firm’s board is former Hungarian intelligence agent and national safety expert tied to the Orbán government, László Földi.

According to Átlátszó, a firm called Laveco associated with László Váradi, a prominent consultant in the world of offshore company creation, served as a mediator in the establishment of Nothingham Holding Ltd. Átlátszó notes that Laveco conducts its “official” banking at MKB Bank–a financial institution first re-nationalized by the Orbán government, then sold to business interests attached to the Governor of the Hungarian National Bank and former Fidesz minister György Matolcsy, and then more recently sold yet again to the Fidesz mayor and billionaire plumber Lőrinc Mészáros. It is, however, important to note that at the time when the Azeri money was being deposited in MKB Bank following Safarov’s release, MKB Bank had yet to be bought up by the Hungarian state and was owned by German business interests.