On Monday, the long-awaited criminal trial will begin at the Debrecen Court of Law. Key figures of an international cigarette smuggling network will stand trial, charged with causing billions of forints in damage to the Hungarian state budget.
According to the indictment, a multinational crime syndicate—comprised of Hungarian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Romanian-Russian nationals—regularly smuggled large quantities of cigarettes illegally from the United Arab Emirates into Hungary through Debrecen International Airport. Hungarian authorities intercepted the third shipment, revealing that the perpetrators had already inflicted more than 8.5 billion forints (about 21.3 million euros) in financial damage to the state budget.
During the preliminary hearing in January of this year, the prosecution offered the Hungarian defendant, Jozsef Sarkadi, a nine-year prison sentence and his Polish accomplice, Ireneusz Dilczyk, ten years—on condition that they plead guilty. Both men refused and denied the charges.
On Monday, Sarkadi and Dilczyk will once again face the court. However, the Polish defendant will participate via video call since Poland refused to extradite him.
The prosecution has accused the two men and their accomplices (whereabouts unkown) with large-scale financial fraud committed within a criminal organization.
The Smugglers Were Caught Red-handed at the Airport
As previously reported by Magyar Nemzet, in August 2022, a cargo plane landed at Debrecen Airport, arriving directly from Dubai. After customs clearance, the shipment was loaded onto four Polish trucks which then set off. However, upon leaving the airport, officers from Hungary’s National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV), in a meticulously planned and executed operation cracked down on them.

Hidden among auto parts, the trucks were carrying 23 million untaxed cigarettes produced in the UAE.
The financial damage to the state amounted to billions of forints. Several members of the smuggling ring fled, and two individuals remain on Interpol’s wanted list.