On Tuesday, more than one hundred searches were carried out at companies and public institutions in the Italian provinces of Trento, Bolzano, Brescia, Milan, Pavia, Rome, Verona and abroad. The public prosecutor’s office apparently sees the Tyrolean real estate entrepreneur Benko as a central figure in illegal activities in northern Italy.
Following the large-scale operation covering large parts of northern Italy and South Tyrol, apart from Benko, arrest warrants were also issued for eight other people. In South Tyrol, for example, the auditor, entrepreneur and Signa Italia boss Heinz Peter Hager was placed under house arrest. Similarly, Cristina Santi, the mayor of the town of Riva del Garda in the province of Trento is currently also under house arrest.
The offenses, which include fraud and various crimes against the public administration, the formation of a criminal organization, undue influence, manipulation of tenders, unlawful party financing, and the suspected violation of tax regulations in connection with the issuing of invoices for non-existent transactions, are said to have occurred in projects between 2018 and 2022.
There are no special conditions for the investor. Moreover, according to a spokesperson for the public prosecutor’s office in Innsbruck, the arrest warrant for Benko will not be executed in Austria, since a European arrest warrant does not have to be executed if it concerns a citizen against whom corresponding proceedings can also be conducted in the country, shared the Austrian broadcaster ORF.
