In our historical-economic review, we present an instructive story that has almost disappeared into oblivion. It reveals how the suicide of an intimidated, blackmailed store manager, novice and recidivist, led to the revelation of one of the greatest embezzlement of the sixties and the cunning criminal gang.
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The ill-fated Gyula Korpádi a store manager at Lake Balaton, an unnamed detective, and Zoltán Márton, the chief accountant of the Balatonfüred and Region Regional Agricultural Cooperative, are the three main characters in the story. The main location in the 1960s was only three hundred and seventy enthusiastic small villages in Veszprém County, Paloznak. (The village of the Balatonfüred district swelled to only 546 people by 2019.)
From the shop in Csopak to the prison and then to the shop
We can learn about the unfolding of the events from the recollection of Gyula Korpádi, who became a store manager in Balatonakali, Balatonfüred and then Csopak through the Balatonfüred and Region Regional Agricultural Cooperative. However, the Veszprém district court – like a lightning strike – soon ended the man’s career for a while, according to the verdict. the court finds him guilty of the crime of dishonest and negligent treatment of social property committed as the head of the agricultural cooperative’s Csopak general store and is therefore sentenced to one year and two months’ imprisonment. ” In prison, the man was determined never to embark on the path of sin again, and because of his exemplary conduct, he was free to leave after seven months in captivity.
From September 30, 1963, he ran a shop again, this time in Paloznak, where the residents were soon welcomed into their hearts. However, they did not know that
yet, despite his promises, he was unable to get rid of his former harmful habit — that is, to occasionally tame the store cashier. At the time of the first comprehensive inspection, the deficit was only nineteen forints, but this increased to 16,000 forints a year later. This is quite a remarkable amount in the year when according to the data the average monthly gross earnings in the national economy were HUF 1,702.
The inspection of the general store is the toughest auditor of the Balatonfüred and Region Regional Agricultural Cooperative, Lajos Losonczy carried out, who also discovered the shortage – which, to Korpádi’s surprise, he conjured up by rounding up the value of the stock.
The inspector, on the other hand, was not driven by helpfulness, he acted on higher instructions. He was a member of a criminal organization set up and operated by the cooperative’s chief accountant, which shortened the public wealth in almost all the shops under their supervision. They were known in the public consciousness as the “Füred gang”, as the headquarters of the cooperative and the organization were also located here.
The Füred gang worked in a simple way
The band’s method may have worked because of its simplicity: the shops reported the points of payment and the regular inspections were carried out by built-in persons, who, among other things, have always made sure that the stock and the central register exactly match by modifying the general ledger data. The store managers, and thus Korpádi, were persuaded to be silenced and blackmailed. Fearing that he might go to jail again for his criminal history, the store manager in Paloznak made a great effort to make up for the shortage. He made as much money as he could and borrowed from anyone who was willing to help him out. As a result, the central auditor ended up with a shortfall of only three thousand forints. For this reason, however, he was deprived of his managerial position and became a seller in the store in Balatonfüred, and his salary was reduced by five hundred forints a month, with which he could repay the deficit.
The gang soon reported it anyway, and after a few weeks of work, he was fired here as well. It so happened that by the time he was forty-two, Korpádi became unemployed, the breadwinner of his wife, who worked in the dairy shop in Balatonfüred.
During the interrogation at the prosecutor’s office, Korpádi testified that he felt guilty, but only in part. Giving up the fight, putting up with his fate, he didn’t even ask for a defense lawyer. The story of the Füred gang and Korpádi could end here, but this is far from the case.
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