The Austrian prosecutors accuse René Benko to close ten million in millions

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The Viennese public prosecutor’s office accused René Benko of taking up tens of million euros in the run-up to the collapse of his real estate empire in 2023, including the 46-MIO.-EURO sales of an Italian luxury goods through his Signa Group, he became a private foundation according to the authorities checked him.

Benko, who led a group in half of the New York Chrysler building, part of Selfridges in London and some of the largest department stores in Germany.

But Signa what was Structures to € 5 billion debtsbegan to dissolve In late 2023 As one of its central companies, Signa Holding, applied for bankruptcy. Benko himself submitted a personal bankruptcy last March.

Benko has been detained in Austria in Austria since January for alleged severe fraud, embezzlement and fraudulent bankruptcy in Austria.

The criminal lawyers in Berlin and Munich also examine potential misconduct and Italian law enforcement authorities Gave an arrest warrant Last year alleged suspicious payments to local officials.

In December, a lawyer from Benko said that his client was confident that “all allegations against him can be clarified as wrong in terms of content”.

According to a 38 -page arrest warrant issued by Austrian prosecutors and that of the Financial Times, Benko is accused of being deceived business partners. Range of creditors – including furniture worth EUR 8 million, € 90,000 Patek Philippe Watch and expensive hunting rifles.

One of the controversial transactions identified by prosecutors is the sale of the luxury tests -villa Eden Gardone in Italy in 2023, which originally owned by Signa Holding in August 2023 for € 46 million to one by Benko’s mother Ingeborg controlled foundation was sold.

Instead of cash, the prosecutors state that the manor house was paid for the use of shares on a Signa subsidiary that became worthless when the company submitted for bankruptcy three months later.

The public prosecutor claims that the transaction is “artificially and economically indefinite” because it exchanged luxury impositions for a strongly devalued participation in a fighting company.

They claim that the transaction had been carried out by chance, and the sales documents have no detailed description of the assets that were able to improve the owners, usually standard procedures for such a complex deal.

In addition, the prosecutors claim that Benko described the shots in two family foundations – a fictionally controlled mother Ingeborg, a retired kindergarten teacher, and one of his daughter Laura – who affect a number of potentially suspicious transactions.

The public prosecutor also expressed concerns about a payment payment of EUR 2 million in 2023, which Benko provided to one person near him: part of a series of payments between 2018 and 2023, which, depending on the arrest warrant, was 15.5 million EUR .

They accuse Benko of having hidden his ownership of furniture worth EUR 8 million in an Innsbruck men’s house and, with a payment of € 360,000 in October 2023, made a legal person who has a property that he has in Innsbruck Use the next four years. The public prosecutor claims that this payment has no “objective justification”.

When Benko orchestrated the alleged asset in 2023, he allegedly became misleading the investors about his financial health.

In mid -201023, when his own investment area was due to a few thousand euros in money in his bank account, and according to the actually insolvent, the arrest order states.

The prosecutors claim that he had channeled investments of two of his business partners through several legal companies in his empire in order to mask the origin of the funds and then incorrectly presented the money as his own contribution.

A Benko lawyer did not answer a request for a comment. The Vienna public prosecutor’s office rejected a statement.