A corrupt Hungarian tax collector who moved to Auckland under a false name to avoid incarceration overseas will now serve time in a New Zealand prison instead.
The 50-year-old and his partner, 44, both claimed they have spent the past 14 years on the run from the Hungarian mafia as they appeared for sentencing yesterday in Auckland District Court for multiple forgery and fraud charges involving immigration documents.
But the Crown suggested the mafia story was just another con, and Judge Kathryn Maxwell ultimately rejected the explanation as well.
“There is a certain irony in you attempting to throw shade on Hungary ... when you yourself have been found to be corrupt,” she said before ordering sentences of three years’ imprisonment for the fugitive and 11 months’ home detention for his partner.
The judge also noted the pair’s requests for permanent name suppression fell well short of the “extreme hardship” test required by the law. However, their names remain secret for now after their lawyers said they will appeal the decision.
According to the agreed summary of facts for their case, the man’s troubles in Hungary appeared to begin in 2007, when he was arrested on bribery and corruption charges regarding his work for the nation’s tax department in the two prior years.
He spent eight months in custody in 2007 before he was released on bail to await trial. He entered a relationship with the woman in 2008, and in 2009 he was found guilty at trial of the charges.
But he was allowed to remain on bail during an appeal process, which ended in January 2011 when he was sentenced to four-and-a-half years’ imprisonment.
Instead of going to prison, however, he fled to another part of Hungary. Two months later, the couple arrived in New Zealand on a visitor visa available at the time to Hungarian nationals.
They used the passports of acquaintances in Hungary whose identities they assumed. In June that year, after the woman found out she was pregnant, the couple decided she would leave New Zealand and return under her real name two months later.
Less than a year after their arrival, both filed work visa applications – omitting or falsifying required information such as the man’s criminal history. And they didn’t stop there – filing more applications over the years for residency, permanent residency and eventually citizenship.
They also filed a forged birth certificate and fake adoption papers in an attempt to get the man’s adult child from a previous relationship into New Zealand.
It wasn’t until after they applied for citizenship in 2019 that their schemes were finally detected. They were charged in 2023.
Prosecutors showed intercepted texts between the male defendant and another man in which it appeared he had a long-term plan in play to get a New Zealand passport and wait for the statute of limitations for his Hungarian conviction to expire. It was also noted that New Zealand has no extradition policy with Hungary.
“One day we will write about it in a book, once everything is clean,” one text stated.
Another stated: “Everyone will fall for it.”
Crown prosecutor Matthew Nathan argued that the texts went against the suggestion that the defendant feared for his life, as did an email he sent to an Auckland football club inquiring about joining when he was still in Hungary.
“It does strike the court as somewhat unlikely that someone fleeing ... the mafia would pause to lock in a football club at their intended destination,” Judge Maxwell agreed.
Defence lawyer Andy Wei said his client stood by the account of being fearful of the mafia, which he said had been consistent since the man confessed in an Immigration New Zealand interview in 2022. The lawyer submitted three affidavits from people who said the man discussed the mafia fears with them.
But the judge said the documents were irrelevant at best. Two of the affidavits were from people who didn’t know the man at the time of his offending in Hungary and a third, she noted, was from a man who aided in the immigration ruse and would have likely been a co-defendant had he resided in New Zealand.
In his own affidavit to the court, the defendant said he had been young and naive when he took the tax job – although the Crown noted he was in his 30s – and had been befriended by a person he would only later learn was high-ranking in the mafia.
The mafioso had enormous clout and money, and when the defendant was arrested he started receiving threats, he said, explaining he thought he would be most vulnerable if he was in prison.
“The crux of the affidavit is he had no choice other than to leave,” the judge summarised.
But Judge Maxwell pointed to the different perspective in the Court of Appeal judgment from Hungary, which identified the defendant as the initiator of the corruption offences and the main conduit between his co-defendants.
The only reference to threats or violence in the appeal court judgment involved the defendant: an alleged suggestion by him that someone might end up in a wheelchair.
Although the judge had previously agreed to a four-year starting point for the fugitive and a 20% reduction for guilty plea, prosecutors suggested she had good reason to reconsider something less generous in light of the “fundamental shift” in the case caused by the affidavits.
“The stance taken over the last few months with this court shows a lack of real remorse ... and an alarming lack of contrition,” Nathan said, describing the mafia claims as “remarkable” and showing a heightened risk of reoffending.
Lawyer Ayushi Kala, representing the female defendant, said her client believed her partner when he said they were in danger. Her difficult childhood, including seeing police fail to intervene during family violence situations, prompted her to view fleeing the country as the best option, the lawyer said.
But Judge Maxwell pointed out that the woman posted photos frequently on social media in her own name and returned to Hungary for visits several times.
Deterrence for such cases is important so that others know there are consequences for taking advantage of the system, the judge said.
“This country places a high value in maintaining the integrity of its borders,” she added.
The judge allowed the original sentence starting points and guilty plea discounts agreed to at a sentence indication hearing earlier this year. But she declined most other requested reductions, with the exception of 5% for the impact on their children.
“What happens at the border is a matter of public interest,” the judge said as she subsequently denied the name suppression requests.
The male defendant, who has been on bail while awaiting sentencing, gave a thumbs-up gesture to his supporters as he was led away to begin serving his sentence.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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