Posted 3/3/2018 6:24:58 PM
MUNICH (GERMANY), Mar. 20 (Reuters / EP) –
German prosecutors have registered on Tuesday BMW headquarters in Munich on suspicion that the car firm used an “illegal” software capable of manipulating the levels of emissions of their vehicles.
Nearly 100 policemen and law enforcement agents recorded the German manufacturer’s facilities in the Bavarian capital and also its engine plant in Steyr (Austria).
Prosecutors said in a statement that they opened the investigation into the alleged fraud last month, following an “early suspicion that BMW used a system to reduce emissions during lab tests.”
For its part, BMW said in another letter that prosecutors were investigating the case of a “software” “wrongly” introduced in approximately 11,400 vehicles of the models 750d xDrive and M550d xDrive.
The prosecutor’s office in Brunswick (Germany) has also announced that it has expanded its investigation into the case of diversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from some Volkswagen vehicles, suspecting that the German brand lied about the true extent and that it had incurred in a market manipulation.
According to the German magazine ‘WirtschaftsWoche’, the Brunswick authorities registered 13 offices of the Volkswagen Group headquarters in early March, a fact that has been confirmed to Europa Press by sources of Volkswagen AG, confiscating documentation and terabytes of data, with the objective of “verify the suspicion and identify those responsible”.