MOSCOW (Sputnik) — German prosecutors initiated an investigation Monday against Martin Winterkorn, a former chief executive of car-maker Volkswagen, over accusations of fraud in connection with an emission cheating scandal, local media reported.
"The focus of the investigation is on the accusation of fraud by the sale of vehicles with manipulated emission levels," the German newspaper Wirtschafts Woche reported, citing a letter from the prosecutor's office in Braunschweig in the northwestern German state of Lower Saxony.
The German car manufacturer admitted last week to cheating emissions tests in some of its diesel-engine cars. According to the company, 11 million Volkswagen vehicles worldwide have been fitted with rigged software allowing them to downplay their true emission results.
A number of countries across the European Union, along with Canada, India and South Korea, have launched investigations to determine whether Volkswagen vehicles in their country were fitted with this particular software.
