Austrian criminal Roberto Divkovic has been formally indicted on serious fraud charges and will stand trial at the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters, after the Higher Regional Court of Vienna rejected his objection to the indictment. The court found that the evidence assembled by prosecutors, including a sworn witness affidavit and supporting exhibits from the criminal complaint, establishes a sufficient and well-founded suspicion of serious fraud, and that a conviction appears plausible on the current state of the file. Divkovic’s prior conviction for the same modus operandi, secured in late 2025, weighed heavily in the court’s reasoning.
Court Rejects Divkovic’s Defence
In a written statement submitted ahead of the ruling, Divkovic again insisted that the underlying loan arrangement was genuine and that the funds had been used legitimately. The Higher Regional Court found the account internally inconsistent and unsupported by any convincing proof of what was actually done with the invested money.
Under Section 212 of the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure, an objection to an indictment succeeds only in narrow circumstances, typically where the court lacks jurisdiction, where the indictment contains a serious formal defect, or where the evidence is plainly inadequate even to consider a conviction. None of those grounds was made out. The judges treated Divkovic’s dispute of the allegations as a matter for the trial court, not a reason to halt the proceedings before they begin.
Indictment Filed Under Sections 146 and 147 StGB
The Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office lodged the indictment after Divkovic, having attended a police interview on 27 January 2026, declined to make a statement and then failed to file the written submission his counsel had promised within three weeks. With no defence on file, the prosecutor took the view that the assembled evidence was sufficient and referred the matter to the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters.
The charges fall under the Austrian Criminal Code provisions governing fraud (Section 146) and serious fraud (Section 147), which apply where the damage exceeds €5,000 or where the offender acts in a particularly aggravated manner. These are the same provisions that underpinned Divkovic’s earlier conviction.
Procedural Timeline
A Pattern of Procedural Delay
The Austrian investigation has been marked by repeated delays attributable to the defendant. Divkovic cancelled an initial police interview scheduled for 27 November 2025, citing a need to retain counsel, then failed to appear without explanation for a follow-up appointment in late December. Only on a second formal summons did he sit down with investigators on 27 January 2026, and then only to decline comment.
The pattern mirrors the parallel civil case in Serbia, where the Belgrade commercial court had to appoint a temporary legal representative for Divkovic after repeated failed attempts to serve him with court papers. The €132,000 judgment in that matter became final in mid-2025 only because Divkovic let the appeal window expire.
Earlier ba-ca.com reporting documented how Divkovic repeatedly failed to appear for Austrian police questioning through late 2025, and how the Serbian-registered IMP 1991 Plus DOO Beograd drew investors with promises of high returns from gold trading in Ghana, Uganda, and Burkina Faso. Investors say the promised quarterly dividends never materialised.
What Comes Next
With the objection rejected, the file moves from the Higher Regional Court to the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters for scheduling. A main hearing is expected within the next few months. Witnesses, including the investor whose criminal complaint and affidavit anchor the prosecution case, are likely to be summoned to testify.
If Divkovic is convicted, sentencing will be governed in part by Section 31 paragraph 1 of the Austrian Criminal Code, which requires the court to impose an additional sentence where a defendant has already been convicted of an earlier offence that could have been tried together with the current matter. In practice, the second conviction would add to, rather than replace, the punishment from the first.
Case File at a Glance
What This Means for Investors
For the investors who lined up against Divkovic on the civil side in Belgrade, the criminal track in Vienna offers something the Serbian judgment did not, namely the prospect of a court airing the evidence in open hearing rather than processing the matter by default. Under Austrian law, victims who join the criminal proceedings as private parties (Privatbeteiligte) can have their civil claims adjudicated in the same trial, in some cases sparing them the cost and delay of a separate civil action.
Roberto Divkovic, through his counsel, has consistently maintained that the loan and investment arrangement was legitimate and that no fraud occurred.
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This is a developing story. Ba-Ca will report on the trial date and proceedings once they are scheduled.