Big chunk of Signa

77 major proceedings: The WKStA is not getting bored at the moment

(Bild: HANS KLAUS TECHT)

The Economic and Corruption Prosecutor's Office (WKStA) does not have to complain about a lack of work: In the previous year, it concluded 1000 proceedings. At the same time, 960 new ones were added, the authority announced on Wednesday. 

The number of proceedings lasting more than three years was reduced by a third. The parties involved in the proceedings, for example in the Signa case, do not always make it easy for the WKStA, as senior public prosecutor Martin Ortner explained.

Currently 77 major proceedings
The WKStA is currently prosecuting 77 cases, which is two thirds of all major proceedings in Austria. These are proceedings involving losses in the two to three-digit million range or thousands of injured parties and therefore require an enormous amount of investigative, management and administrative work, as Wolfgang Handler, Deputy Head of the WKStA, explained.

The authority has 47 public prosecutors, 10 economic experts and 15 IT experts at its disposal. Ilse-Maria Vrabl-Sanda, head of the WKStA, did not want to comment on the authority's resources or the rumored role of a federal prosecutor. "I certainly wouldn't tell a government something like that via the media," she noted.

Those involved often delay investigations
In addition to the usual procedural steps in the investigation - such as which documents may be used, which reports must be prepared - it is above all the effort involved in file administration that can drag out proceedings and, in the case of the Signa bankruptcy, has done so. In the case of the inspection of files in particular, all submissions by public prosecutors have to be examined and the relevant files transmitted.

The Signa case is the biggest chunk that the WKStA currently has to deal with.

(Bild: APA/Eva Manhart)

Every application for access to the files and every appeal against a refusal must be re-examined by public prosecutors and, if necessary, forwarded to the court. Appeals can also be lodged against a judicial decision until the matter ultimately ends up at the Higher Regional Court. However, access to the files can be requested again at any time, which means that the process starts all over again.

Around 200 investigations are currently pending. Around 72 percent of these are purely commercial criminal cases, around one fifth (21 percent) are commercial and corruption offenses and around 7 percent of the cases are purely corruption.

New online frauds
Although the total number of cybercrime proceedings before the courts has fallen, the number of new proceedings in this area has risen by around a quarter. Around half of all new major WKStA proceedings are cybercrime proceedings. These proceedings include fraud proceedings involving the cryptocurrency EXW, attempts to scam money transfers as a supposed son or daughter via WhatsApp or text message, or the online fraud with "Juicy Fields", which involved alleged investments in cannabis plants that promised a high return.

There are also mass fraud phenomena: callers pretend to be police officers and try to obtain money or valuables from victims using all kinds of justifications. Fake public prosecutors or fake judges also try their luck: the victim's daughter or son has caused an accident resulting in death. Bail must be paid to spare the child from going to prison.