PORSCHE

Porsche targets police operation in Germany

In the context of investigations into scandal involving the handling of emissions from diesel engines, authorities conduct searches and seize documents at ten facilities of the Volkswagen group company.German authorities have carried out a major search and seizure operation at offices of the Porsche automaker on Wednesday as part of investigations into a diesel engine emissions data manipulation scandal.German public prosecutors in the city of Stuttgart, where the company is headquartered, investigate former and current employees of the company, which belongs to the Volkswagen group, including a member of the board of directors. About 190 agents searched ten Porsche facilities in the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.Among the suspects investigated by the prosecution are a member of the board of directors, a senior official of the company and a former employee, all suspected of involvement in fraud and fraudulent advertising associated with emission control systems for diesel passenger vehicles.
Porsche confirmed the searches at its facilities, as well as the seizure of documents by the investigators. Both the prosecution and the company have avoided revealing the names of the suspects being investigated.More than two and a half years after Volskwagen admitted cheating on diesel engine emissions tests in the United States, the company and some of its subsidiary brands remain under investigation.Earlier this year, German prosecutors expanded the investigation to include Audi, which developed a diesel engine that contained illegal software that handled emissions data and was installed on about 80,000 Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi models.Audi confirmed that two of its facilities were also searched on Wednesday in the cities of Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm. Bavarian police and the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office took over the operation. So far, the only one held by the Bavarian prosecutors is the former Porsche CEO Wolfgang Hatz.Hatz, arrested in September last year, was head of Audi's engine development department between 2001 and 2007. He then took a management position at Volkswagen and in 2011 was appointed to lead the research and development Porsche.

dw.com