Luxury yacht and private jet linked to Hungarian government elite crossed paths on the Adriatic

As we have shown in 2018, the private jet and luxury yacht used by the Hungarian government elite crossed paths several times in 2019 as well. We obtained the 2019 routes and found that in the summer of 2019 OE-LEM and Lady Mrd were present simultaneously on several occasions in Dubrovnik, Rijeka, Tivat and Zadar. 

In September 2018 we exposed the Austrian-registered OE-LEM private jet, worth $ 17 billion, and the luxury yacht Lady Mrd, flying the Maltese flag, worth $ 7 billion, linked to the Hungarian governing elite. We were tracking the two luxury vehicles all summer and, in doing so has documented where the leadership of the governing party of Hungary and their business partners spent their summer vacations.

Hungarian government elite, including Orban, uses luxury yacht and private jet registered abroad

Atlatszo has been tracking two luxury vehicles all summer and, in doing so has documented where the leadership of the governing party and their business partners spent their summer vacations.

After purchasing and analyzing the private jet and luxury yacht archive itineraries, we pointed out that the two exclusive vehicles often “meet”: in 2018, OE-LEM made several trips from Budapest to the Adriatic Sea where Lady Mrd was staying. These points of contact were usually in popular holiday destinations in Italy and Croatia. Bari, Split, Pula, Rijeka, Venice and Tivat were among the cities where Lady Mrd and OE-LEM were present simultaneously.

We have now collected and shown all the 2019 journeys of the two luxury vehicles.

OE-LEM, the $ 17 billion Austrian-registered Bombardier Global 6000 17-seater luxury airplane has made over 150 trips so far since our September 2018 article. It mainly visited well-known European destinations and often flew to popular holiday destinations in the summer.

Lady Mrd, the Benetti Crystal 140 is a luxury yacht of 140 meters, 42 meters in length and 9 meters in width, 3 decks and 5 cabins, with a staff of 7 for the passengers comfort.

In May 2019, Lady Mrd began to tour popular sites in the Mediterranean from Montenegro to Croatia. The luxury yacht was present in the ports of Budva, Cres, Dubrovnik, Jelsa, Korcula, Kotor, Makarska, Mali Losinj, Opatija, Rijeka, Rogoznica, Skradin, Split, Supetar, Tivat, Trogir and Zadar in the summer of 2019.

It returned to Rijeka in early September last year, and is still there, as shown on the live footage of the Rijeka port webcam.

As in 2018, the private jet and luxury yacht routes crossed several times in 2019.

In July, August and September 2019, OE-LEM and Lady Mrd were present simultaneously on several occasions in Dubrovnik, Rijeka, Tivat and Zadar. These meeting points can be seen on the map below. Red indicates the movement of the private jet and black indicates the movement of the luxury yacht. Click the arrows at the bottom of the map to navigate by date:

Data can be downloaded here (XLS)

This map shows all of the 2019 journeys of the governing elites favorite aircrafts and yacht, red for OE-LEM and black for Lady Mrd:

Data can be downloaded here (XLS)

The Hungarian government elite did not limit itself to the Austrian-registered private jet for private trips: we found out that the Hungarian military also purchased luxury airplanes, which frequently visit exotic locations, casino towns, tax havens, and popular foreign holiday destinations. The purpose and participants of these public-funded trips is “not public for national security reasons”.

Why does the Hungarian Air Force fly to the Canary Islands, Las Vegas, Dubai, Malta, or Panama?

In 2018 Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán traveled frequently with newly acquired military aircraft and posed proudly next to them. Since then, however, flight route data on two passenger and two luxury jet aircraft purchased by the Hungarian Defense Forces has been hidden from flight tracker websites.

Text: Katalin Erdélyi – Data visualization: Attila Bátorfy

You can read the more detailed Hungarian version of this article here.