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Austrian property tycoon René Benko has been arrested, as Vienna’s legal prosecutors accused him of constructing inaccurate statements through the insolvency proceedings of his Signa property holding in an try to embezzle belongings.
Regulation enforcement authorities stated Benko was arrested on Thursday as a result of he was thought-about a flight threat and prosecutors have been involved that he would possibly tamper with proof. Additionally they accused him of forging a doc.
In an unrelated investigation, Italian police in December issued an arrest warrant for Benko over alleged improprieties along with his enterprise within the South Tyrol area. Viennese legal prosecutors disclosed on Thursday that they fashioned a joint investigation group with prosecutors in Berlin and Munich to hurry up cross-border investigations.
Benko’s arrest comes greater than a 12 months after his Signa conglomerate collapsed, leaving insurance coverage corporations, banks and different buyers in Austria and Germany going through billions of euros in losses.
Prosecutors allege that Benko has been the final word helpful proprietor of an Innsbruck-based household basis that’s named after his daughter Laura. The Monetary Occasions final 12 months reported {that a} Signa Group firm transferred greater than €300mn to 2 entities managed by that basis earlier than the insolvency.
Austrian prosecutors allege that Benko didn’t disclose his management over the entity, dubbed Laura Basis, throughout his private insolvency proceedings.
“By doing this, he hid belongings and excluded wealth that was saved within the basis from the legislation enforcement authorities, the administrator and collectors,” prosecutors stated in an announcement, pointing to proof gathered in a multi-month investigation that included phone surveillance.
Benko can also be accused of fabricating proof by retrospectively producing an bill to maintain three beneficial weapons out of the authorities’ attain, in line with the prosecutors.
Prosecutors additionally allege that Benko deceived Signa shareholders into collaborating in a capital enhance by pretending that his household basis would additionally put in new funds, including that he masqueraded exterior buyers’ funds as his personal contributions by organising a posh chain of cash transfers between totally different authorized entities.
Benko can also be accused of promoting Villa Eden Gardone, an expensive mansion by Lake Garda in Italy, to a Liechtenstein-based basis in a pretend transaction that prosecutors see as potential embezzlement.
He’s additionally alleged to have duped a international sovereign wealth fund which he persuaded to put money into a property challenge subsequent to Munich’s central railway station. The majority of the funds have been then used illicitly for different functions, the prosecutors add.
A lawyer for Benko didn’t instantly reply to an FT request for remark.
