Did Gaspar Orban, son of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, die of a drug overdose in Marbella, Spain, in early January 2024? No, that's not true: The Ministry of Defense confirmed that Gaspar Orban is alive, currently serving in the Hungarian army, and preparing for a mission in Africa.
The claim appeared in a TikTok video no longer available but archived here on January 6, 2024, under the title, translated from Hungarian into English by Lead Stories staff:
Complete news blackout in the Hungarian media, Gaspar Orban was found dead in his apartment in Spain in the early morning. Gaspar Orban, January 6, 2024, Saturday morning, 05:30, Marbella, Spain. He was found dead in an apartment, probably an overdose.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jan 31 15:54:58 2024 UTC)
Responding to a Lead Stories inquiry on the claim, the Hungarian Ministry of Defense on January 31, 2024, referred to an interview that the Hungarian Minister of Defense, Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, gave to index.hu (archived here) on January 25, 2024. In the interview, the minister denied the claim, stating that Gaspar Orban is alive and well. He is currently serving in the army and is working with the minister's cabinet to prepare the Hungarian army's mission in Chad, he added.
Direkt36, a Hungarian investigative website, also found evidence (archived here) that Gaspar Orban is working in Africa: He was filmed and photographed with a Hungarian delegation in Niger and Chad between October 2023 and January 2024.
Lead Stories contacted also the Marbella police and the Spanish National Police to find out if they had investigated any cases of overdose in Marbella in January 2024. However, at the time of publication of this article, there had been no response.
