Investigation into subsidy fraud after KaDeWe bankruptcy
Published: Thursday, Dec 5th 2024, 14:30
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The Berlin public prosecutor's office is investigating subsidy fraud in connection with the insolvency of the Berlin luxury department store KaDeWe. The department store belonged to the Signa Group of the previous owner René Benko.
"We started investigating the Signa Group in the summer of this year, and it involves many sub-companies," said Sebastian Büchner, spokesman for the Berlin public prosecutor's office. "One of these sub-companies is the Kadewe Group - and we are now investigating them for subsidy fraud." RBB had previously reported on the investigation.
The public prosecutor's office had already announced in the summer that there were preliminary investigations into possible criminal investigations into the Signa insolvency involving 169 individual companies. Documents were being examined with regard to allegations of bankruptcy, breach of trust and subsidy fraud.
Investigations also in Austria and Italy
The Signa Group, which was built up by Austrian entrepreneur René Benko and recently collapsed, with numerous well-known department stores, is in insolvency proceedings. The Thai Central Group took over KaDeWe in Berlin and Globus in Switzerland, among others.
Following the Signa bankruptcy, Benko is also under investigation in Austria and Italy. The Italian police issued a European arrest warrant for the Austrian, citing investigations in connection with large-scale real estate speculation./wim/DP/ngu
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