Austrian police have confirmed that the stolen coffin and remains of the German billionaire Friedrich Karl Flick were found in Hungary and handed over to Austrian authorities over the weekend.

Media reports suggest that six men were detained in Budapest in connection with last year's theft. Authorities in Austria and Hungary declined to comment, citing ongoing investigations.

"The news is an incredible relief for the family, especially since it comes so close to Christmas," family spokesman Joerg Andreas Lohr said.

Flick moved to Austria in the mid-1990s where he died aged 79 in October 2006. He was buried in a mausoleum at a cemetery in Velden in southern Austria.

Between 12 and 14 November 2008 thieves broke into the mausoleum, pushed aside a large granite slab, and stole the billionaire's 200-kilogram (441-pound) coffin.

The mysterious theft dumbfounded Austrian police, and the billionaire's widow Ingrid and her family offered a reward of 100,000 euros ($150,000) for the return of Flick's body.

The German mass-circulation Bild newspaper reported that the criminals had demanded a "million-euro ransom" for the body which they hid in a small wooded area in Buda.

Austrian and Hungarian police did not comment on how they had traced the coffin but pledged to provide more data once the investigation is concluded.

Flick sold off his business empire in 1985. In the year of his death, Forbes magazine ranked him 94 among the world's richest people. His family inherited an estimated 5-6 billion euros.

nk/AFP/dpa/Bild
Editor: Chuck Penfold