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Vienna criminal prosecutors accused René Benko of having diverted tens of millions of euros in the collapse of the collapse of his real estate empire in 2023, including potentially by the sale of 46 million euros in a Italian luxury area by his group signed to a private foundation The authorities say indeed controlled by him.
Benko, who presided over a group that had half the New York Chrysler building at its peak, which is part of Selfridges in London and some of the biggest department stores in Germany, was arrested in Austria last month after of a criminal investigation by prosecutors in Vienna, Munich and Berlin.
But sign, who was built on 5 billion euros in debtstarted to disintegrate in End of 2023 When one of his central societies, Sign Holding, asked for insolvency. Benko himself filed a request for personal insolvency Last March.
Benko has been in preliminary detention in Austria since January for an alleged aggravated fraud, a embezzlement and a fraudulent bankruptcy.
Criminal prosecutors in Berlin and Munich also investigate potential floods and Italian law enforcement agencies issued an arrest warrant Last year, for suspicious payments presumed to local officials.
In December, a Benko lawyer said that his client was convinced that “any allegation against him can be clarified as substantially incorrect”.
According to a 38 -page arrest warrant issued by Austrian prosecutors and seen by the Financial Times, Benko is accused of deceiving business partners to inject 35 million euros into the portfolio of goods failing it while triggering simultaneously Species and active ingredients worth tens of millions of euros out of outside the REach of creditors – including furniture worth 8 million euros, a Patek Philippe watch of € 90,000 and rifles expensive hunting.
One of the controversial transactions identified by prosecutors is the sale of the luxury villa Eden Gardone in Italy in 2023, originally owned by Sign Holding and sold in August 2023 for 46 million euros to a foundation officially controlled by Benko Ingeborg’s mother.
Instead of species, prosecutors declare that the manor was paid to use actions in a signal subsidiary which became worthless when the entity filed a request for insolvency three months later.
Prosecutors allege that the transaction was “artificial and economically incredible” because it exchanged luxury real estate for participation strongly devalued in a company in difficulty.
They claim that the transaction was carried out at random and the sales documents lacked a detailed description of the changing hand assets, normally standard procedure for such a complex case.
In addition, prosecutors allege that Benko called the shots of two family foundations – a little controlled by his mother Ingeborg, a retired nursery school teacher, and one by his daughter Laura – who were parts to a certain number of potentially suspicious transactions.
Prosecutors also raised concerns about cash payment of 2 million euros in 2023 Benko to a person close to him: part of a series of payments between 2018 and 2023 which totaled 15.5 million euros, According to the arrest warrant.
They accuse Benko of having hidden his property of furniture worth 8 million euros in an innsbruck manor and challenged a payment of € 360,000 in October 2023 to a legal entity which had a property that he used in Innsbruck, characterizing it as a prior rent payment for the next four years. Prosecutors claim that this payment lacked “objective justification”.
At the same time as Benko orchestrated the stripping of alleged assets in 2023, he would also have deceived investors on his financial health.
In mid-2023, when his own investment vehicle had fallen to a few thousand euros of money in his bank account and that, according to the investigation indeed, Benko promised that he would personally contribute to 35 Million to a capital increase of 350 million euros in Sign Holding Holding, the arrest warrant indicates.
Prosecutors claim to have channeled the investments of two of its business partners through several legal entities in its empire to hide the origin of funds, then distorted money as its own contribution.
A Benko lawyer did not respond to a request for comments. Vienna prosecutors refused to comment.
