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Criminal public prosecutors have accused René Benko of obscuring tens of millions of euros in the run -up to the collapse of his real estate empire in 2023, including possible due to the € 46 million sale of an Italian luxury estate by his Signa Group to a private basic authorities say that he was in force in force.
Benko, who provided a group that owned half of the Chrysler building in New York, part of Selfridges in London and some of the largest department stores in Germany, was arrested in Austria after a criminal investigation by officers of justice last month In Vienna, Munich and Berlin.
But Signa, which was built on € 5 billion in debts, began to fall apart at the end of 2023 when one of the central companies, Signa Holding, applied for insolvency. Benko itself applied for a personal insolvency last March.
Benko has been in Austria in Austria since January on alleged serious fraud, embezzlement and fraudulent bankruptcy.
Criminal prosecutors in Berlin and Munich also investigate potential misconduct and Italian law enforcement authorities spent an arrest warrant last year due to alleged suspicious payments to local officials.
In December a lawyer for Benko said that his client was convinced that “all accusations against him can be clarified as a substantive incorrect”.
According to an arrest warrant of 38 pages issued by Austrian public prosecutors and seen by the Financial Times, Benko is accused of misleading business partners to inject € 35 million into the failing real estate pedy, while at the same time getting cash and assets out of millions of euros from the Reach of creditors – including furniture worth € 8 million, a Patek Philippe Watch and expensive shotguns of € 90,000.
One of the controversial transactions that have been identified by officers of the judiciary is the sale of the luxury Villa Eden Gardone in Italy in 2023, originally owned by Signa Holding and sold in August 2023 for € 46 million to a foundation that is officially checked by Benko’s mother Ingeborg.
Instead of cash, the judiciary officers say that the country house was paid for the use of shares in a Signa daughter company that became worthless when the entity applied for insolvency three months later.
Prosecutors claim that the transaction was “artificial and economically unbelievable” because the luxury real estate exchanged for a heavily devalued share interest in a struggling company.
They claim that the transaction has been carried out randomly and that the sales documents missed a detailed description of the assets that change hands, normally standard procedure for such a complex deal.
In addition, public prosecutors claim that Benko called the Schoten on two family foundations – an idea that his mother Ingeborg, a retired teacher at Kleuterschool, and one of his daughter Laura – who were parties for a number of potentially suspicious transactions.
Public Prosecutors also issued their concern about a cash payment of € 2 million in 2023 Benko made to a person close to him: part of a series of payments between 2018 and 2023 who amounted to a total of € 15.5 million, According to the arrest warrant.
They accuse Benko of it his ownership of furniture worth € 8 million in an Innsbruck -Herenhuis and in October 2023 put forward a payment of € 360,000 to a statutory entity that he used a property that he used in Innsbruck, the characterized as a Payment of rent for the next four years in advance. Prosecutors claim that this payment had no “objective justification”.
At the same time, when Benko orchestrated the alleged assets in 2023, he would also mislead investors about his financial health.
Mid -2023, when his own investment vehicle was a few thousand euros in cash in his bank account and according to the investigation in fact Insolvent, Benko promised that he would personally contribute € 35 million to a capital increase of Signna of € 350 million from Signa Holding, the arrest warrant.
The prosecutors claim that he has channeled investments through two of his business partners through several legal entities in his empire to mask the origin of the funds and then proposed the money as his own contribution.
A lawyer for Benko did not respond to a request for comments. Vienna Officers of Justice refused to comment.