Former Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn has been accused of conspiring to mislead US regulators about the carmaker's emissions in a scandal that has been called 'dieselgate'.
Former Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn leaves the Bundestag in Berlin early last year, where he faced a parliamentary committee investigating the "dieselgate" scandal. Photo: AFP PHOTO / Odd ANDERSEN
Volkswagen admitted in 2015 that it outfitted about 11,000,000 diesel cars worldwide with a device to cheat software aimed at reducing emissions.
The company itself pleaded guilty to three criminal charges in January last year, and paid fines totalling $US4.3 billion.
Mr Winterkorn, who stepped down from his role as chief executive days after the scandal was revealed is the highest-ranking person to be charged in relation to the matter after an indictment filed in secret in March was unsealed on Thursday local time.
He was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, wire fraud and violating the Clean Air Act from at least May 2006 through November 2015 by using illicit software that allowed Volkswagen diesel vehicles to emit excess pollution without detection.
Volkswagen initially suggested that only lower level executives knew of the cheating, but the indictment alleges Mr Winterkorn was informed of VW's diesel emissions cheating in May 2014 and in July 2015 and agreed with other senior VW executives "to continue to perpetrate the fraud and deceive US regulators," prosecutors said.
News of the charges came on the same day as Volkswagen's annual meeting in Germany.
In total, nine people have been charged and two have pleaded guilty in the case. One Italian citizen, a former Audi manager, is in Germany awaiting extradition.
A spokesperson for the US Attorney's office in Detroit said Mr Winterkorn was not in custody.
Six of the former Volkswagen executives charged are in Germany and have avoided facing US prosecutors because Germany typically does not extradite its citizens.
- Reuters
