On Tuesday morning, plainclothes police officers searched the multi-million dollar villa of Signa founder René Benko in Innsbruck-Igls. “tirol.orf.at” reported on this.
No further information about the operation has been released yet and reference has been made to the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. Benko’s lawyer Norbert Wess, however, confirmed the search.
In addition to several police patrols, a special task force and a drone were also spotted at the luxurious villa with around 6,000 square meters. A house search also took place at the Signa headquarters in Vienna at the same time, as the “kleinezeitung.at” reports.
Benko’s Signa Holding filed for bankruptcy at the end of November 2023, and in the weeks that followed, other companies from the corporate empire of the Austrian entrepreneur Benko followed suit. Benko’s complex corporate structure included the Elbtower project in Hamburg, the luxury department store KaDeWe in Berlin and the also insolvent department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof.