The survey on diesel extended to former leaders of Audi

BERLIN (Reuters) – search warrants were carried out Thursday at the home of two former executives from Audi and a third person in the framework of the investigation on the brand’s involvement in the scandal of the polluting emissions of diesel engines of its parent company Volkswagen (DE:VOWG_p), has announced the prosecutor’s office in Munich.

These new searches are made in response to those carried out on 6 February at the headquarters of Audi in Ingolstadt and at its plant in Neckarsulm, in the framework of the same investigation.

The current leaders of Audi, not are always not among the suspects, whose number has risen to 17, said the prosecutor, adding that the new suspects were seen as partially responsible for the cheating on emissions tests.

Searches of this Thursday to coincide with the scheduled meeting date of the supervisory board of Audi to discuss the financial results 2017 the mark of top of the range VW, a sign that the shadow of the “dieselgate” continues to cast a shadow on the Volkswagen group.

Last week, Matthias Müller, the chairman of the supervisory board of Audi, has denied statements made in the Bild newspaper on a put away imminent the chairman of the management board Rupert Stadler.

Audi said on Thursday to cooperate with the prosecutor, while the parent company has declined comment.

Audi, the main contributor to the profits of VW, has admitted to having used illicit devices to control emissions in the United States in November 2015, two months after the first revelations of the scandal at VW.

The manufacturer from Ingolstadt has designed large diesel engines V6 of 3,0 liters in question in 2015, the United States, where they were nearly 80.000 models, VW, Audi and Porsche.

(Andreas Cremer, with contributions by Jan Schwartz and Irene Preisinger ; Claude Chendjou for the French service, edited by Véronique Tison)