Kuruc

[Magda Hassan]

'Revolutionary' Money Factory

2010-12-05
The most influential national extremist site operated by the Hungarian hate group kuruc.info claims that it „makes revolution", but according to Athena Institute investigations, the operators of the website are also interested in the millions of tax-evading revenue that their activities generate. The Athena Institute mapped the financial operation of the kuruc.info hate group.
At present, kuruc.info is the most active hate group operating in Hungary. Its main focus is the propaganda activities carried out on the group's internet site that it labels
 as a 'news portal'. On their website, the group continually publishes offensive statements about certain Hungarian communities (mostly the Roma, the Jewish and
 the LGBT communities) which often qualifies as hate speech and glorify fascist ideas. The group was very active in coordinating extremist activities during the 2006 riots in
 Budapest, many times violating the law by for example making personal data of judges, prosecutors, police personnel public on their site and often called for its 
supporters to make harassing calls to them.

(The then commander of the Hungarian riot police is asked for pardon from the 
victims of the police overreaction against innocent demonstrators and the Chairman of the Budapest Metropolitan Court also asked for pardon from those who were taken 
into custody because of the futile work of the Court. This however did not legitimize the often unlawful activities carried out by the hate group.)
Kuruc.info also played a decisive role in propagating the concept of 'gypsy criminality' in the Hungarian public domain. The concept is based on the ideology of racist 
extremism as it defines criminality on an ethnic basis stating that a member of the Hungarian Roma community is more likely to carry out criminal activities than others
living in the country. The hate group defines itself as a kind of "resistance movement" and as such it does not consider Hungarian law obligatory when it comes to its own
acts.
Under its current name, the portal started in 2006, before it was run under the 
domain and name http://www.kettosallampolgarsag.hu ('Dual Citizenship'). As a consequence of the ensuing conflicts with the Magyar Hírforrás Portál internet 
service provider company that provided its servers to host the website, the group moved the site to hosts in the United States. That time 'editors' and 'writers' of the
site were identified by their real names, just as Mr. Balazs Molnar was who claimed responsibility for the activities related to the publication as its 'editor-in-chief' 
against whom the Hungarian Prosecution Service raised charges soon after the site published personal data including cell phone numbers and home addresses of 
judges, prosecutors and police personnel involved in the proceedings related to the2006 riots.
In 2008, the Hungarian Government contacted U.S. authorities and citing regulations of the Homeland Security Act they ask for the closure of the site. The U.S.
Government declined the request as in its view the activities of the website were legal and protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Subsequently, the Hungarian Government in concert with the then U.S. Ambassador to Budapest launched an effort to reach out to individual internet service providers in the U.S. and
ask them informally to halt the website. As a result, the website briefly became unreachable, but in 2008 kuruc.info found a host company who declined the repeated requests and provided the hate group with the necessary web hosting services.
'INVITATION ONLY'
Since the above incidents, the website is operated under false identities, its 'editors' and 'writers' work in a highly conspired, secretive way. Those with alleged ties to the 
hate group deny any such relationship, moreover, they usually initiate lawsuits on the basis of libel.
While trying to learn more about the way the group operates, we contacted some former and present day 'editors' and authors. Most of them denied their involvement
 and denied further communication with us, but some of them shared their experiences strictly on the condition of anonymity. During these discussions, it 
became clear that the 'editors' are the core members of the group and selected on an 'invitation only basis'. Each day one of them is responsible for managing the
 operation: keeping contact with 'writers' and editing the site.
The invited 'writers' get a password via e-mail and with this, they can use the 
editorial-administrative interface of the website, post their writings. Then acting as a supervisor, the 'editor' by confirming the piece makes it available on the website.
 Recruitment of 'writers' is carried out by the 'editorial' team, 3-4 core members of the organization protected by the use of different aliases. Recruits are selected mainly
 from the wider circles of far-right, extremist organizations who are usually not paid for their work. There are no any direct personal contacts between the 'writers' and the
 'editors' because of the use of aliases, only core members of the hate group know the real identity of all participants, thus the group operates in a highly centralized way.
During our discussions, former 'editors' of kuruc.info including the extremist
blogger, Mr. Tamás 'Tomcat' Polgár who was willing to speak with us on the record identified Mr. Balázs Molnár, Mr. Roland Kürk and Mr. Előd Novák (who recently 
gained a seat in the Hungarian Parliament as a representative of the Jobbik Party) as current 'editors' of the propaganda site. Those mentioned previously denied any 
involvement when, in 2008, a blog (partizaninfo.blogspot.com) that identified itself as an antifascist site published this information as well as personal data of those 
mentioned (thus by violating the law itself).
Later, Mr. Péter Gusztos, then Member of the Parliament representing the Free
Democrats, in one of his speeches held in the Parliament in May 2009, also identified Mr. Balázs, Mr. Kürk and Mr. Novák as the 'editors' of kuruc.info. Mr. Gusztos also 
inquired from the Minister of Justice why the hate group was held accountable. Gusztos also mentioned that paid advertisements appear regularly on the site, thus 
advertisers were seemingly able to contact members of group without the means available for the police or for the intelligence community.
'PILES OF MONEY IN SHOPPING BAGS'
The financial operation behind the kuruc.info raises several questions. It's obvious 
that the organization does not have a legally registered entity neither in Hungary, nor in the United State. Accordingly, it does not pay taxes after the revenue it generates.
According to our sources, the group that operates the website already built up an 'informal' system to carry out financial operations in 2006 that is well-functioning ever 
since then. Mr. Tamás Polgár who was involved as one of the 'editors' of kuruc.info for a brief period in 2006 also took part personally in transactions related to money 
circulation that mainly came from donation campaigns initiated by the group and selling advertisements. He stated for the Athena Institute that he himself took over
payments in his own shop and said that sympathizers 'brought in piles of money in shopping bags'.
In 2006, only Mr. Polgár took over 5 million Hungarian forints for kuruc.info, which according to his statement served the payment of the editors exclusively ensuring 
them a half-a-million forints 'tax-free' monthly salary. Meanwhile the 'writers' receive salary rarely or not at all, they work for the website because of a "sense of duty".
They consider kuruc.info the most influential publication of the Hungarian extreme-right.
Kuruc.info has never disclosed the amount of money they raised during their 
fundraising campaigns or the revenue generated by selling space for advertisements, not to mention information about how they spent the money. Only the leaders of the
group can have relevant information. On the other hand, while the ongoing financial operation of kuruc.info is carried out for years, there is no information on any 
investigations initiated by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service or the Hungarian Tax and Financial Control Administration in contrast to the fact that tax evasion is 
evident.
Previously, the website published only unverifiable information about the number of
its visitors, but since June, 2010, the widely acknowledged Hungarian webaudit company (Medián Webaudit Ltd.) started to measure its readership. According to 
their surveys the portal has an. approximate number of 50 to 100 thousand visitors a day. We have contacted the company to ask who or what kind of organization 
ordered their service on behalf of kuruc.info, but they refused to provide any information citing their obligation to "keep commercial secrets".
'FOR RÉKA JUHÁSZ IN A CLOSED ENVELOPE'
In order to verify the information provided by our sources, we created a fictitious 
character, Mr. Zsombor Varga- Kovács, a 67 years old wood-carver. Using Google picture searcher, we have chosen a Székely-gate picture, placed our 'offer' on it and 
contacted the person who is in charge of advertisements at the kuruc.info via email.
[video=vimeo;17493877]http://vimeo.com/17493877[/video]

The first reply we received was signed by "Szabolcs Jeney". In it we were told that 
the organization is unable to provide us with an invoice and that "this is the reason of the low advertisement price". As advised on the site, we offered to pay sixty-thousand 
Hungarian forints for posting our advertisement. After this, we received another answer, this time signed by "Peter Hollik" who already re-edited our advertisement. 
To our subsequent question if there is a chance to pay the fee via bank transfer, we were told by "Mr. Hollik" to transfer the amount to a private bank account in
California, the United States. We were provided with all necessary information related to the bank transfer: the international bank account number as well as its holder's
name who was identified as Mr. Bela Varga. Mr. Varga is supposedly the Hungarian winemaker living in the United States and the same person who re-registered the
 kuruc.info domain name in the U.S. shortly after the website was closed down in April, 2008.
After all this, we wrote "Mr. Hollik" again and told him that we would rather prefer to handle the fee personally in Budapest. As part of the answer, we were given the 
address of a small shop called "Turánia" which is located in the sixth district of Budapest. "Mr. Hollik" has given us strict instructions as well: we had to deliver the 
money in a closed envelope with the name of the advertiser written on it. "Hollik" wrote that as required by the salesmen, "we should not mention in any way the name
of kuruc.info, we are only to say that »We brought a letter to Ms. Reka Juhasz« the salesmen will know what to do". According to the official Registry of the Court, the
shop "Turánia" is operated by Sabir Bt that was registered in 2008 by Mr. László Fekete and his wife.
We followed the instructions point by point, telling the salesman that we are the son of our fictitious character. After we handed over the envelope, we asked if "this
money is to reach kuruc.info?" and the salesman replied: "Don't worry, it will reach its destination." Using a hidden camera, we videotaped the money-transfer, our 
advertisement can be found on the front page of the website and later our "letter of gratitude" was also displayed in its advertisement section.



Sándor Jászberényi Tamás Bodoky
The Athena Institute
http://athenainstitute.eu/en/infocus/read/2