Austrian tycoon Rene Benko sentenced to 2 years in prison for fraud

Rene Benko, an Austrian businessman whose legacy as a property tycoon collapsed with the fall of his real estate empire Signa Holding three years ago, was sentenced to two more years in prison on Thursday.

The Innsbruck Regional Court found Beko guilty of defrauding €5 million from the private foundation of Austrian industrialist Hans Peter Haselsteiner. The payment from Haselsteiner arrived just weeks before Signa Holding declared insolvency.

It was the third criminal proceeding against Banko, coming after two earlier convictions. He was sentenced in the first case in October 2025 on charges of insolvency related fraud. In September 2026, he received a 30-month term for harming creditors.

The new sentence against Benko, 49, comes just ‌three weeks ⁠after ⁠he was released to house arrest to serve out a previous conviction.

Benko's lawyer said he would assess whether to appeal the conviction over the weekend.

Benko was acquitted on a second charge that he had hidden a luxury rifle worth €80,000 from creditors.

The fall of Signa Holding

Benko was once thought to have been a wunderkind for having established himself as a self-made entrepreneur after dropping out of college.

At its peak, Signa Holdings accumulated a portfolio worth more than $30 billion, with stakes in New York's Chrysler Building and Berlin's KaDeWe department store.

In 2023, Signa Holdings declared bankruptcy, dealing a blow to a myriad of European property investors and others.

The fall of Signa was considered the single biggest financial earthquake to have hit the European property market since the global financial crisis of 2008.