Audi Under Investigation for Falsifying Documents, Dieselgate May Never End
Big scandals have a way of sticking around for a while. Not just days or weeks, but years.
That’s the case with Audi, which is now facing a new investigation in Germany for falsifying documents, mileage readings, and vehicle identification numbers (VINs) in South Korea, going back to 2013.
One unnamed employee was convicted of fraud in South Korea last year and sentenced to 18 months in prison for tampering with documents. The tampering was done to make vehicles look legal and certified for sale in that country.
That case is linked to this new investigation, and this new investigation is indirectly related to the Dieselgate issues that have plagued the company for some time now. Reports indicate that so far, the spotlight is being trained on three employees who aren’t board members.
“We have three suspects, but there could be more,” Karin Jung, a Munich prosecutor, told The Wall Street Journal.
Although an internal Audi audit reportedly found evidence of malfeasance in 2016, it was a Dieselgate-related raid by German authorities in 2017 that led the authorities to learn about the information. Audi wasn’t obligated to self-report this information. After the raid, German authorities looked over the report and decided to launch a new investigation.
Reports further speculate that an unnamed Chinese gang is somehow involved in all this – but it’s not clear how.
Audi sales have dropped 7 percent in Europe this year thanks to new emissions tests, and demand for diesels is down.
[Images: Audi]
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
More by Tim Healey
Comments
Join the conversation
So what's new? Vorsprung durch betrug.
Poor VAG, full of rouge employees.