Benko Investigation

Attorney General: “So Far, These Are Just Mickey Mouse Charges”

Wolfgang Peschorn (right) takes issue with the lack of a clear direction in the Benko case.(Bild: APA/Eva Manhart, Birbaumer Christof, APA/HELMUT FOHRINGER)

In an interview with the “Krone,” Wolfgang Peschorn sharply criticizes the criminal prosecution in the Benko case. The president of the Financial Prosecutor’s Office laments the lack of proper coordination among the authorities under the leadership of the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Economic Affairs and Corruption. 

Things moved quickly: As the “Krone” learned, René Benko left the Innsbruck Correctional Facility early Thursday morning—after 21 months in prison. He then moved into a specially rented 60-square-meter apartment in a chic neighborhood in Innsbruck.

“My client has been under house arrest since 9:30 a.m.,” confirmed his attorney, Norbert Wess—who earned the respect of his fellow attorneys for the rare achievement of securing an ankle monitor while his client was in pretrial detention. As reported, Benko is one of only two out of 1,863 pretrial detainees nationwide who are under electronically monitored house arrest.

But will the judge’s decision stand? The Public Prosecutor’s Office for Economic Affairs and Corruption (WKStA) has filed an appeal; a panel of judges at the Higher Regional Court must now decide.

So far, the charges have been mere “Mickey Mouse” charges that do not do justice to the extraordinary scale of the asset transfers.

Wolfgang Peschorn, Präsident der Finanzprokuratur

“It Was a Deliberate Act”
Sharp criticism of the prosecution comes from Wolfgang Peschorn, who, as president of the Financial Prosecutor’s Office, has been calling for a focus on the big picture since the collapse of the Signa “castle in the air” at the end of 2023. He says the current developments happened “after careful planning”: “You can’t keep a person in pretrial detention forever.”

In an interview with the “Krone,” the President of the Financial Prosecutor’s Office laments the lack of “proper coordination among the authorities” under the leadership of the WKStA: “I can’t discern a clear direction for the investigation.” At some point, he says, a decision must be made: “Either you assume that Benko controlled everything and the foundations were money silos. Or these were arm’s-length transactions—and one of his confidants just happened to be the managing director of 330 out of over 1,000 companies.”

“Brings back memories of the Eurofighter scandal”
Peschorn points out that financial crime authorities, too, are bound by the directives of criminal authorities in their proceedings. Furthermore, he notes that so far there have been nothing but “Mickey Mouse charges” that do not do justice to the extraordinary scale of the asset transfers. Yet since 2024, there has been sufficient grounds for suspicion regarding a “far-reaching money carousel” and the “siphoning off of funds” to “foundations controlled by Benko.”

Peschorn: “The Signa case brings to mind the Eurofighter investigations. The Higher Regional Court (OLG) closed the investigation in 2020 on the grounds that the WKStA had not sufficiently investigated the allegations for two years.”