Germany’s first criminal indictment in VW emissions scandal is ex-CEO Winterkorn

Enlarge / Martin Winterkorn, former Volkswagen Group CEO. (credit: Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images)

On Monday, German prosecutors filed a criminal indictment against former Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn for participating in the fraud that led to the diesel-emissions scandal that rocked the company in 2015. Four other managers were also indicted today, but their names were not released.

In 2015, US officials accused VW Group of putting illegal software on diesel Audis, Volkswagens, and Porsches. The software would essentially kill the cars' emissions-reduction systems during real-world driving to improve performance, but under laboratory conditions, the cars would pass emissions tests easily. Later, it was discovered that VW Group's diesels were using the same mechanism to subvert European Union vehicle emissions standards. Winterkorn and other VW Group management said they had no knowledge of this software and blamed its presence on "rogue engineers."

Winterkorn stepped down from his position shortly after VW Group's cheating was made public.

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