Austrian prosecutors accuse René Pinko of the embezzlement of tens of millions

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The criminal prosecutors in Vienna René Pinko accused the embezzlement of tens of millions of euros in the period before the collapse of his real estate empire in 2023, including the potential by selling an Italian luxury property worth 46 million euros by a special group for him to a private institution to a private institution that says it says The authorities were actually controlling it.

BENKO, who headed a group that owned at its climax half of the Chrysler building in New York, is part of Selfridges in London and some of the largest administration stores in Germany, was arrested in Austria last month after a criminal investigation by Vienna, Munich and Berlin.

But Signa, which was built on 5 billion euros of debt, began to disintegrate in late 2023 when one of its central companies advanced, Signa Holding, requesting insolvency. Benko himself presented a personal insolvency last March.

Benko was in detention before the trial in Austria since January due to the alleged strict fraud, embezzlement and fraudulent bankruptcy.

Criminal prosecutors in Berlin and Munich are also investigating the potential misconduct, and Italian law enforcement agencies issued the arrest warrant for last year due to alleged suspicious payments for local officials.

In December, one of the Benko lawyer said that his client is confident that “any allegations against him can be clarified as greatly incorrect.”

According to a 38 -page arrest warrant issued by the Austrian prosecutors and was seen by the financial Times, BENKO is accused of deceiving business partners to pump 35 million euros into the Holding Company for failed property while transferring money and assets simultaneously to tens of millions of euros. The arrival of creditors – including 8 million euros, and the 90,000 euros Patek Philippe watch and expensive fishing rifles.

One of the controversial transactions identified by the public prosecutors is the sale of the luxury real estate villa Villa Gardion in Italy in 2023, originally owned by Signa Holding and sold it in August 2023 for 46 million euros to an institution officially controlled by the mother of Benko igoBorg.

Instead of criticism, the public prosecutors state that the palace was paid in exchange for the use of shares in a subsidiary of a remarkable subsidiary that has become value when the entity applied for insolvency after three months.

Prosecutors claim that the deal was “artificial and unreasonable economically” because it replaces luxury real estate for a low -value share in a struggle company.

They claim that the transaction was conducted randomly and that the sale documents lack a detailed description of the changing assets, and the standard procedure for such a complex deal is usually.

Moreover, the prosecutors claim that Penco called the shots in two family institutions – one of which is controlled by his mother, England, a school at the retired nursery school, and one by his daughter Laura – who was weapons on a number of possible suspicious transactions.

Prosecutors also raised concerns about a cash payment of 2 million euros in 2023, Penco, a person close to him: part of a series of payments between 2018 and 2023, which reached 15.5 million euros, according to the arrest memo.

They accuse Pinko of hiding its ownership of the furniture of 8 milliliters of the value of the 80 mm in Innsbruck and assuming a problem in paying 360,000 euros in October 2023 to a legal entity that owns a property that he used in Innsbruck, and described it as a prior payment for the next four years. Prosecutors claim that this batch lacks any “objective justification”.

At the same time that Benko was organizing the alleged assets that were stripped in 2023, it was claimed that he was also misleading investors about his financial health.

In mid -2013, when his investment car fell to a few thousand euros of money in its bank account and according to the insolvented investigation, Benko promised that he would personally contribute to 35 million euros to increase the capital by 350 million euros, detention countries.

Public prosecutors claim that he has made investments by two business partners through multiple legal entities in his empire to hide the origin of the money, then distort the money as his own contribution.

Pinko’s lawyer did not respond to the comment request. Vienna Public Prosecutors refused to comment.