Commuter who Bought Bogus Metro Pass Transported to Jail

It turns out that getting caught using a bogus metro pass you have unwittingly bought from the company running the metro can result in worse things that a Ft 2,000 (€8) fine, and having the fake pass taken away. While we had earlier reported that the poor commuter who had unwittingly bought a counterfeit pass from an official metro ticket clerk had only had the pass confiscated and been forced to pay a fine, the duped straphanger was actually carted off to jail.

An internal investigation by Budapest public transport company BKV Rt found that their ticket clerk had sold the forged metro pass to the young woman. The pass had earlier been bought by someone else, who used chemicals to erase the expiration date, then "sold" it back to BKV. Because the clerk broke a rule by buying back the pass, they were fired. Meanwhile, the unsuspecting commuter, who was taken to the District VIII police station in handcuffs, had been on her way to work when she was stopped by ticket "controllers" at the Ferenc körút metro station. She showed them the pass, which she had bought at the same station.

"They inspected it, smelled it, put it under UV light," she told origo.hu, then concluded the pass was forged and told her to pay a fine. She refused, saying she had bought the pass from BKV, after which the controllers called the police. The district police head thinks the officers did everything right, but an expert of the Association for Liberty Rights (Társaság a Szabadságjogokért), Balázs Dénes, says it was unnecessary to handcuff the straphanger, who may now be expected to file a police complaint against the BKV. According to ma.hu, the BKV will give her another metro pass as compensation.