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FBI Arrests Volkswagen Executive On Charges Related To Dieselgate (cnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the you-can-run-but-you-can't-hide dept.

According to CNET, the FBI has arrested Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt over the weekend on charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. relating to the ongoing Dieselgate emissions scandal. From the report: Schmidt headed VW's regulatory compliance office in the U.S. from 2014 to March 2015. The FBI's official Criminal Complaint states that during that time VW employees -- Schmidt included -- knowingly installed secret "defeat device" software in 475,000 diesel cars in the U.S., hiding during emissions testing the fact that those cars emitted up to 40 times the legally allowable pollution levels when on the road. The complaint asserts that by knowingly installing this secret cheat software, Schmidt and VW conspired to defraud the U.S. by impairing and impeding the Environmental Protection Agency and violating the Clean Air Act, leading to the arrest on Saturday. Schmidt is due to appear before a Federal Court in Miami on Monday.

3 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why is this story worthy? by drew_kime · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why is this worthy of Slashdot? This is just an executive being busted by the FBI.

    Because the exec was responsible for validating code that was found to not be doing what he said it did.

    Do you have anybody in your company doing QA? Or auditing code? Think they might be interested in this?

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    Nope, no sig
  2. Re:VW cost investors $80 billion, more than Enron by avandesande · · Score: 4, Informative

    2007 financial crisis cost 22 trillion dollars, nobody was jailed.

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    love is just extroverted narcissism
  3. 35 bankers in prison, but yeah the Obama admin vs by raymorris · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not quite true that *nobody* was jailed. Here are 35 bankers sent to prison:

    http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/2...

    Also some who didn't go to prison did get fines over over $100 million.

    Compared to the 1980s S&L crisis, there were certainly fewer prosecutions. One career prosecutor who is knowledgeable about both says that one reason for that is the the Obama administration, unlike the Reagan administration, was hostile toward white-blowers who could have enabled prosecution.