Volkswagen Group’s woes are far from over as the emissions scandal gets uglier. Volkswagen Group has announced that German authorities have detained Rupert Stadler, CEO, Audi, on Monday June 18, 2018. The executive was arrested at his home in Ingolstadt.
The group also said that an investigation is currently ongoing and it is yet to be determined whether Stadler would be remanded following the arrest. Stadler is the most senior company official so far to be taken into custody over the emissions test cheating scandal.
News agency, Reuters suggests that Stadler was being detained ‘due to fears he might hinder an ongoing investigation into the scandal’. The Munich prosecutor’s office said, “As part of an investigation into diesel affairs and Audi engines, the Munich prosecutor’s office executed an arrest warrant against Mr Professor Rupert Stadler on June 18, 2018.”
The infamous Dieselgate scandal surfaced in 2015 and has cost the Volkwagen Group billions of dollars. In fact, in June 2016, Volkswagen Group had set aside USD 14.7 billion for Dieselgate affected customers just in the US market. Volkwagen Group was accused of selling diesel cars with software that turned on full pollution controls only when the car was undergoing official emissions testing. The US Environmental Protection Agency called this algorithm a “defeat device”.
With inputs from Reuters
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