[dZired]

Oliver Schmidt, the former Volkswagen Executive who is currently in American custody under an investigation regarding the infamous emission scandal, has been denied bail by a US Judge. Schmidt was arrested by F.B.I on Sunday, January 8th, when he was returning to Germany after a family vacation in Florida.

Oliver Schmidt was the General Manager of a Volkswagen environmental engineering office in Michigan from 2012 to 2015. He is accused of playing a key role in deceiving US regulators to deliberately sell around 600,000 VW cars that weren't compliant with US emission norms. He is also said to have deleted important documents related to the investigation, despite the company asking him to preserve all documents.

After getting arrested, Schmidt filed for a bail, which was denied as the prosecutors convinced the Judge that if Schmidt is set free, he will fly back to Germany. And since US doesn't have any extradition treaty with Germany, it would be impossible to arrest him again.

Media reports suggest that Schmidt will undergo trial for 11 charges. If he receives maximum penalty for each felony, he could face upto 169 years in prison. Schmidt is one of the 6 VW executives who have been indicted by the F.B.I. However, except him, other executives are currently in Germany and are thus far from the reach of US officials.

Source: WXYZ

Link to Team-BHP News

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by dZired

since US doesn't have any extradition treaty with Germany, it would be impossible to arrest him again.

Originally Posted by dZired

Schmidt was arrested by F.B.I on Sunday, January 8th, when he was returning to Germany after a family vacation in Florida.

The sheer gall and arrogance of this exec to visit the US, almost thumbing his nose at the EPA and their entire case. I don't consider this an oversight by him, given he was crafty enough to take malicious steps like deletion of documents.

Interesting to see the US playing hardball by arresting him and denying bail. And good they've got an executive to nail, instead of just fining a faceless corporate entity.

[aravind.anand]

Who in the right mind would go for a vacation to a country that is waiting to hunt him down?

And really smart of F.B.I. to keep monitoring these foreign officials to nap them at the opportune moment. I wonder if VW would step in, to rescue him now.

Also, I really wonder if he was behind such a master plan, as he couldn't even plan his vacation at a safe place

[D33-PAC]

Originally Posted by arunphilip

Interesting to see the US playing hardball by arresting him and denying bail. And good they've got an executive to nail, instead of just fining a faceless corporate entity.

The US always plays hardball. Case in point. Mukesh Ambani can sit in his ivory tower in Mumbai, but when the US Gov found out RIL was exporting gasoline to Iran which was placed under sanctions, they threatened to stop RIL's exports to the USA - RIL stopped exporting to Iran to get back the American market.

Compare that to India now - where the Petroleum Minister Jaipal Reddy was ousted from his position after questioning Reliance Industry's practices in the KG-D6 basin.

[i74js]

Vacation US VW - which is the odd one out here and the answer is known to everyone. I doubt if Mr. Schmidt will be so dumb.

This could be something else as he was arrested before he was to fly back from the US back to Germany. At times unofficial trips have several other purposes. More so he was just the General Manager of the company whereas the acceptance of dieselgate started from the top brass.

Something is fishy here !

[GTO]

VW South Korea has also made arrests - news link.

Fraud is fraud and I fully agree with these arrests . In fact, I would love to see more VW managers in jail, especially those who actively supported the cheating.

You can't arrest the entire company, but you can arrest the people in it. If you make a conscious decision to cheat the people of a country & its government, you have to pay the price. Jail time has helped in curbing insider trading on Wall Street, and such arrests will send a strong message out to anyone in the car industry even thinking about fraud.

Well done, FBI!

The USA law & order system is the primary reason why VW is giving owners cash, buying back fraudulent cars and spending billions of dollars. What did India get? A cheap car care kit & a lousy remap .