Vienna: Balkan-Grill Owner Took 4,933 Euros From Blind Guest
Mirsad A., owner of a Vienna restaurant in the Brigittenau district, was arrested after a months long investigation. He is charged with defrauding a blind guest (71), robbery and arson.
Police in Vienna have arrested Mirsad A., owner of the Balkan-Grill restaurant in the Brigittenau district, following a months long investigation led by prosecutors. For the Serbian diaspora in Austria, where Balkan restaurants remain one of the few places that daily bring together guests from across the former Yugoslavia, the case has drawn attention far beyond Vienna, raising the question of how safe such venues really are for vulnerable customers.
The arrest came after prosecutors approved action against the suspect, and a witness who provided investigators with additional information played a key role in uncovering the case. Mirsad A. faces charges on several counts, including fraud, robbery and arson.
How the blind guest’s scam was uncovered
One of the cases against him involves a 71 year old blind guest of the restaurant, identified in media reports only as Mr. P. A total of 4,933.33 euros was charged to his bank account.
The elderly man visited the restaurant seven times over two weeks in May. Because of his blindness, paying by bank card was easiest for him, so he paid that way after every meal. According to his account, sums as high as 2,000 euros were deducted from his card after some of his visits, and his bank statements later showed the amounts had been entered manually and had grown larger over time.
He only discovered the fraud several weeks later, when he went through his bank statements with the help of an assistant. When he realized nearly 5,000 euros had disappeared from his account, Mr. P. collapsed and was taken to hospital. He had reportedly been saving the money for years to cover his own funeral costs.
His family then confronted the restaurant’s owners with the allegations. They initially cited a technical problem, then claimed it was a manual entry error caused by the small buttons on the POS terminal.
What the former landlady says
The case took on a new dimension when Mirsad A.’s former landlady spoke to Austrian media. She signed the lease with the family in February 2025, and says problems have piled up ever since: unpaid rent, suspected fraud, robbery and arson.
By her account, only one of 20 monthly rent payments was ever made, leaving 19 unpaid. She filed for the family’s eviction, but says the process was complicated after they first challenged the impartiality of the judge, then sought legal aid citing financial hardship.
A particularly serious allegation concerns a fire set in 2025 at the Floridsdorf address where the family lived. She says a quick response from firefighters prevented worse damage. She estimates the case has cost her around 150,000 euros so far, not counting the costs tied to the fire.
The landlady says the situation is made harder by the fact that she and her father, who uses a wheelchair, live close to the property in question. She has handed investigators surveillance footage showing one of the men in the family dumping large quantities of spoiled meat, estimated at hundreds of kilograms, in the yard. Police records identify him as a 39 year old the landlady describes as the head of the family, who, she says, would otherwise appear in a wheelchair and deliberately slur his speech to justify his status as an early retiree. The footage, she says, shows he did not actually need the wheelchair at the time. She further claims the same man later damaged the surveillance cameras with a stick and a hammer.
What happens next
Austrian authorities have yet to establish the validity of all the allegations against the suspect, as well as any potential responsibility of other family members linked to the case. No trial date has been set so far.
