Four Romanians living in Vienna are said to have capitalized on the corona crisis with a brazen scam. A 56-year-old and his 55-year-old ex-wife founded eleven sports and cultural clubs, at least on paper, and applied for Corona aid for them from the Austria Economic Service (aws) during the pandemic. On Thursday, the two and two co-defendants should have been negotiated at the regional court for 320,000 euros, which, according to the indictment, were wrongly paid out.
However, the negotiation could not go ahead as planned. At first, the 56-year-old continually interrupted the presiding judge and could not be calmed down (“We live in a free state! I can speak!”), whereupon he was expelled from the court. His ex-wife chose not to appear at the trial at all. The judge reached her by phone and was told by the woman that one of the reasons she couldn’t come was because she had “nothing to eat.” In addition, the judiciary “stole money” from her. The judge ultimately ended the phone call because there was no “reasonable basis for discussion,” as she noted in a note in the file.
The judge then wanted to have the defendant brought before the police and thus brought to trial with the power of command and coercion. That failed because officers from the Hohe Warte police station did not find the 55-year-old at her address. The hearing was therefore necessarily postponed for an indefinite period of time.
What is certain is that the divorced couple, who lived at the same address, founded eleven clubs, the majority of which had or still have a connection to football. However, most of these are not known to the Vienna Football Association. You won’t even find them in various hobby leagues. Another club designated as a “talent and modeling competition for unmarried women” has not carried out any activities at least since 2018. According to the law enforcement authorities, all of the associations, all of which had their headquarters at the address of the two main defendants, were founded with fraudulent intent and only existed on paper. “There is no evidence that the clubs carried out club activities,” the indictment states.
In addition to the main ones, the key functions of all the clubs – chairman, president, secretary and treasurer – were held by two co-defendants, a 37-year-old man and his 36-year-old wife. From spring 2020 to late summer 2022, no fewer than 56 funding applications were submitted for the eleven clubs to the NPO fund, which the federal government installed during the Corona crisis. The fund was intended to support non-profit organizations in the areas of sport, culture and animal welfare through the pandemic and keep them alive by financing their operational costs.
In the present case, at least according to the indictment, the almost 320,000 euros paid out ended up largely in the private accounts of the defendants, which thereby eliminated their “dreary financial situation”, as emphasized in the indictment: “The subsidies paid out (…) were by the defendants used for oneself for exclusively private purposes.”
While the two co-defendants have not yet commented on the allegations, the main defendants have emphasized in the investigation that they are “innocent.” The 56-year-old assured that the clubs existed and that the money was used to “buy trophies and medals” and “pay people.” In addition, he is a “private person” and any further questions should therefore be addressed “to the clubs as legal entities”. When the investigators pointed out that there were no payments for the clubs in his bank accounts, the man replied: “Isn’t a club allowed to buy from Karl Lagerfeld? Do you have to go naked on the street if you work for clubs? We are the slaves for Austria from Romania or what?”
His ex-wife had refused to go to the police for questioning. She submitted written statements, emphasizing that the associations had used the funding “at their own discretion for the smooth running of the activities.” “A thousand hours of activity” could be documented.
The 55-year-old has also not been available to speak to her procedural assistant. “She refused legal advice. She doesn’t want to come because she rejects me,” reported the lawyer in the Gray House. The trial of serious commercial fraud should be continued as quickly as possible.
