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Berlin (dpa) – As if previous accusations against Volkswagen's former boss Martin Winterkorn were not enough, a new suspicion appears in the investigation files: The Prosecutor investigation due to possibly unpaid taxes,
The "Bild am Sonntag" quoted in the files, these include transfers of an amount of about ten million euros in the Swiss accounts over the past two years. years. The existence and content of the German press agency were confirmed Sunday.
But what does the tax investigations have to do with the allegations in the exhaust gas scandal? Nothing says Winterkorn's lawyer Felix Dörr on Sunday dpa. And he goes even further: he examines the lawsuit against the prosecutor Braunschweig . "We are planning to lay criminal charges for treason secrets," Dörr says.
Klaus Ziehe, spokesman for the prosecutor Braunschweig, told the tax investigations against Winterkorn the "Bild am Sonntag": "We will comment on the results after the conclusion of the investigation, not before." On weekends, the authority for an opinion was not achievable.
"The prosecutor of Braunschweig must explain to me the deep meaning of the procedure," Dörr explains. Information on personal financial circumstances and tax issues had nothing to do with the records of the exhaust gas investigations. "Winterkorn's detailed credit card statements, account statements and bank statements are now on the shelves of 39 other defendants' lawyers in the emissions survey, and the private assets of Mr. Winterkorn have nothing to do with the process ". The "Bild am Sonntag" describes with reference to the investigation records in detail the individual purchases Winterkorns, bonuses and transfers to family members.
The tax procedure started in 2017, first with investigations of the Munich Public Ministry on suspicion of money laundering. She received a note from the Winterkorn bank. A normal process, with high transfers, financial institutions are even obliged to do so. Since investigators suspected of a connection with the VW diesel scandal, took over the prosecutor Braunschweig the process and added the five tax files to diesel files.
Diesel investigation records now read what happened to the millions of Winterkorn. In 2016 and 2017, Winterkorn transferred significant amounts from any of its accounts at Sparda Bank Nuremberg to a trust account of its tax advisor. From there, money flowed into the deposits of the Vontobel bank in Zurich. Among them was a depot, which was assigned to the wife of Winterkorn. Investigators suspect that some of the transfers were a donation that would have cost more than half a million euros in gift tax.
In a note, the prosecution stated that Winterkorn presumably postponed the property to Switzerland . "In the records of the note must be found, it could be an" egg nest "Winterkorns.That act is absolute nonsense, says the lawyer Dörr. Due to the case of diesel, Winterkorn is threatened with high claims for damages from VW, in case it would be shown that he has breached his obligations.
Regarding tax law, the lawyer Dörr says that it is Winterkorn's own decision, where and by whom he manages his money. A money transfer from a German bank to Switzerland was legally in order. "According to Mr. Winterkorn's tax advisor's assessment, this process is free from any tax complaint," said the former VW chief's attorney.
Bank Vontobel stressed on Sunday that it complied with all legal regulations. Swiss laws did not allow him to comment on existing or non-existent account details. "In addition, we highlight the automatic exchange of information on financial accounts between Switzerland and Germany since 2018, which has created full transparency."
Incidentally, the lawyer Dörr did not find out from the authorities the shameful detail of his client which is hidden in the files, but only at the request of the "Bild am Sonntag". "We were surprised by the tax investigation itself, the prosecution gave us no indication, and we first focused on the 20,000 pages of the main proceedings," explains Dörr.
In the current proceedings, the scandal of the exhaust gases is decided against Winterkorn as well as against Hans Dieter Pötsch, new CEO of VW, and Hans Dieter Pötsch, due to possible manipulation of the market, against Winterkorn in addition to fraud. The prosecutor Braunschweig has 49 suspects in total – 39 on the handling of nitrogen dioxide emissions, 6 on false CO2 and fuel consumption. In 3 cases, it is market manipulation, in one case an employee who should have called to delete data. Winterkorn resigned from his post on September 23, 2015, shortly after US authorities revealed handling of diesel cars.
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