Secret meeting

What René Benko was up to before his arrest

Billionaire bankrupt Benko continued to use Chalet N on the Arlberg after the bankruptcy.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Karl Schöndorfer, Andreas Fischer, EXPA / APA / picturedesk.com)

On the morning of January 23, 2025, René Benko's handcuffs clicked in his Innsbruck office. Since then, many have been wondering how the financial juggler spent his last hours in freedom - and who else he met. The "Krone" knows the background.

On the night of January 21 to 22, René Benko probably overstepped the proverbial mark. The 47-year-old Tyrolean met in his six-star Chalet N in the Vorarlberg winter sports resort of Lech with a man who had been appointed to the board of a Benko foundation in the Principality of Liechtenstein just a few weeks earlier. An apparently conspiratorial meeting - at least from the investigators' point of view. Benko had "expressly" instructed his chalet manager "not to submit a guest sheet or report to the municipality of Lech". This is according to investigation documents obtained by "Krone" and "News".

The mother as beneficiary
Officially, the founder of the financially ailing Signa Group claims to have had nothing to do with his two most important foundations in recent years. Neither with the Laura Private Foundation based in Innsbruck, nor with the Ingbe Foundation, which is based in Schaan. In both Benko bunkers, the family surrounding the alleged straw mother Ingeborg, a retired kindergarten teacher, is the beneficiary.

In fact, there are numerous confidential documents that show that the billionaire bankrupt was deeply involved in the day-to-day business of his shadowy empire even after his bankruptcy as an entrepreneur in March 2024. The former chief controller recently described Benko as the "autocrat" in a testimony before the Public Prosecutor's Office for Economic Affairs and Corruption (WKStA). 

With the Board of Trustees at Chalet
On the penultimate night before his arrest, Benko invited a financial manager to Chalet N: Robert Schimanko, an Austrian who operates mainly from Switzerland - and has been a trustee of the Ingbe Foundation since November. What Benko doesn't know is that at this point, criminal investigators from Soko Signa are already hot on his heels, and phones have also been tapped in the preceding months. On January 23rd, 8.30 a.m., the arrest took place: he was arrested on suspicion of the commission of the crime and the risk of concealment.

In the Vienna-Josefstadt prison, René Benko claimed in an interrogation of the accused about the reasons for his arrest that he did not know the new CEO of the Laura Foundation, Thomas Limberger, at all - and that "the current three-member board of the foundation are not acquaintances of his and it is impossible that he could exert any influence".

In fact, Thomas Limberger is a manager whose company also employs Ingbe Foundation Board member Robert Schimanko, according to the website. In addition, Christoph Jauschnegg, Benko's long-standing private jet pilot, is active on the board of the Laura Foundation - including as managing director of the subsidiary company where Benko was employed for 3,700 euros per month until his arrest.

Jauschnegg and Schimanko in turn appeared in the online auction in the fall of 2024, in which bankrupt Benko had emotionally important items such as watches, bracelets, cufflinks and a sports boat returned to him. Pilot Jauschnegg collected the valuables he and Schimanko had bought at auction from the auction house. The investigators state: "This shows that there are still links between René Benko and the board members of the Laura Private Foundation and the board members of the Ingbe Foundation and that influence cannot be ruled out."