Volkswagen’s US chief admits awareness of pollution breaching; police raids VW sites

German police have raided Volkswagen headquarters and other sites on Thursday to search for files and digital data that could take the investigation of the auto giant’s pollution cheating scandal further.

“Today, in connection with the so-called emissions scandal, raids were carried out at Volkswagen in Wolfsburg and other locations,” state of Lower Saxony prosecutors told AFP in a statement. “ The raids aimed to secure documents and data carriers that, in view of possible offences, can provide information about the exact conduct of company employees and their identities in the manipulation of exhaust emissions of diesel vehicles. ”

On Thursday, the auto giant faced its first Congressional hearing on pollution scandal. VW’s U.S. Chief Michael Horn appeared in front of the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee, refusing to admit knowledge about the “defeat devices” being installed within the diesel cars to cheat U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, emissions tests in 2009.

The sudden raid at Volkswagen sites was the result of Horn’s admitting that it has been more than a year when he found out about the pollution breaching activities of the company.

At the meeting, however, Horn blamed few of his software engineers of using defeat devices to cheat the pollution regulations. “This was not a corporate decision, from my point of view, and to my best knowledge today,” he claimed, adding, “This was a couple of software engineers who put this in for whatever reasons.” Though the automobile ace has neither identified the engineers nor did they specify the number of staff involved.

Horn read his official document in which he specified that it was since the 2014’s spring when he came to know about the use of defeat device in the vehicles. It was then when West Virginia University found difference in the specified level of emissions by some of the VW’s cars and the real level of emission during performance.

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