“Today I can confirm that since the end of last year, the Munich public prosecutor’s office has received reports of suspected money laundering, which, as usual, led to the registration of a case,” the authority told the APA. Last Sunday, “Bild am Sonntag” reported on the initiation of a money laundering investigation once morest Signa founder René Benko.
According to the Munich public prosecutor’s office, “the facts of the case will of course be examined comprehensively from a legal perspective, including with regard to possible other crimes.” The Signa founder was not named by the authority. However, a spokeswoman for the authority pointed out that there is no corporate criminal law in Germany – meaning that investigations cannot be carried out once morest companies, but only once morest individual people.
The The lawyer told “Bild am Sonntag” that he did not know the procedure. According to the report, Benko’s companies are said to have collected almost 1 billion euros from banks and investors for the acquisition and development of the “Munich’s New Center” project.
120 million euros are said to come from Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), the newspaper writes, citing Signa files and land register extracts. The Benko companies are said to have provided inflated information regarding future rental income in order to obtain higher loans at better conditions. A large part of the money is said to have flowed abroad.
