Region: Homeless gang suspected of Budapest murders

Police have arrested six members of a so-called "homeless colony" who are being accused of involvement in a mass murder on Budapest's Csepel Island.

On Aug. 10, investigators found a shallow grave on the Danube River's largest Hungarian island, which they say contained four corpses. The victims were allegedly buried alive, according to reports.

Police released a statement Aug. 13, which said they had arrested three members of a gang that has lived among a colony of homeless people in a forest at the northern point of the heavily wooded island - including a Macedonian man believed to be the leader. Three other men suspected of being part of the gang were arrested several months ago in connection with other crimes. The gang has been under investigation for several months and is suspected of a number of robberies and violent crimes.

The bodies were found after a 30-year-old Romanian man called police and claimed to have been robbed, beaten and buried up to his neck. He told authorities he had managed to dig himself out.

Investigators are searching for additional bodies.

"According to the [Romanian] man's description, we immediately knew this was the same gang," Hungary's National Bureau of Investigation Director Zoltán Csizner told journalists.

The man claiming to be Macedonian told police after his arrest that he has been in the country since 2007 but did not have any documents to confirm either his nationality or his legal right to live in Hungary. According to Csizner, the man had been under investigation since April. Since his arrest, police have contacted authorities in both Macedonia and Serbia in an attempt to learn his true nationality.

Serbian officials have told investigators in Hungary that they have confirmed the man is not a Serbian citizen.

Media reports in Budapest have speculated that the murders may be tied to a Hungarian loan shark who may have hired the gang members to kill the victims, but police have not confirmed these reports.

Jack Buehrer can be reached at
jbuehrer@praguepost.com