Hungary's National Police Headquarters announced today that upon finding no evidence of a crime, they are dropping the investigation against Elios Innovatív Zrt.
Spokesperson of NPH Kristóf Gál told MTI that during the investigation police seized a significant amount of documents that they revised in cooperation with other authorities. Upon performing all investigative acts deemed necessary by law, the police have concluded that
no criminal activity occurred, therefore the criminal investigation was terminated in the absence of a crime.
Earlier this year the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) revealed numerous irregularities in public procurements won by Elios Zrt. and found evidence of fraud and organized crime in 17 cases out of the 35 procedures under OLAF scrutiny. The Hungarian police started the investigation in January based on the OLAF report upon suspicions that Elios acquired state contacts for street lighting modernisation projects with corrupt methods, thus multiplying the company's revenue over the course of a few years.
Prime minister Viktor Orbán's son-in-law, István Tiborcz is a former shareholder in Elios. Endre Hamar, Tiborcz's partner in Elios at the time, also held interests in an advisory company supposedly having influence over the public procurement procedures in question.
Wednesday afternoon the Hungarian Government issued a reaction that we're publishing in its entirety, in verbatim translation:
It is now apparent that the Brussels authority issued a campaign-report
After months of investigation, it became clear that the Elios-report was a mere political campaign-report from Brussels. The pro-immigration politicians of Brussels attempted to influence last spring's Hungarian parliamentary elections. The Hungarian authorities investigate all cases. Just like now. The thorough investigation performed by the authorities ended up disproving the slanders included in the Brussels campaign-report.