The young man who was arrested by Hungary’s Counter-Terrorism Center on June 1 on suspicion of planning attacks during the Euro 2020 football tournament in Budapest was apprehended thanks to tips from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Hungarian tabloid Blikk reports.
The authorities have charged him with preparing to drive a truck into the crowd at the European Football Championship — held partly in Budapest — and he also wanted to detonate pipe bombs filled with nails.
According to Blikk, the young man, who was raised in a wealthy family, was unmasked during a CIA operation. One of the agency’s intelligence agents infiltrated a dark web group, and his work was so successful that the CIA managed to liquidate an entire Islamist cell. The revelation of the suspected Hungarian terrorist plot was an ancillary benefit to the main goals of the CIA’s operation.
When U.S. special forces attacked the terrorist group, one of them found a secret chat room on his laptop where V. Kende, the Hungarian suspect, also kept in touch with them. The CIA shared this information with the Hungarian authorities, after which the suspected terrorist was apprehended before he could implement any of his alleged plans.
Unlike other Western countries which have struggled with Islamic terrorism, Hungary has not suffered any casualties from any Islamic terrorist attacks. Hungarian security officials attribute this to the fact that Hungary has strict immigration policies that have prevented migrants from Islamic countries settling in Hungary.
Title image: Kende V. arrested by TEK in Kecskemét, central Hungary on June 1. (source: Budapest Prosecutor’s Office)
