BERLIN, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Munich State Prosecution Office has raided the homes of six former and current Audi employees on Wednesday in an attempt to unearth fresh evidence in relation to the ongoing "dieselgate" scandal.
A spokesperson for the State Prosecution Office confirmed to media that raids had taken place in the states Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
A total of 38 officials, comprised of its own staff, as well as staff seconded from the state criminal police offices of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg, were directly involved in the operation.
Wednesday's raid was the second since March 2017 in which Ingolstadt-based Audi was targeted by investigators as a consequence of allegations that the carmaker had also installed illegal software to falsify the level of nitrogen oxide emissions released by its diesel engines.
Audi is a subsidiary of German automotive giant Volkswagen, which was the first firm to be caught up in the global "dieselgate" scandal in 2015.
Volkswagen has estimated that the total cost of fines and mandatory upgrading measures resulting from the scandal would amount to 25.1 billion euros (31.2 billion U.S. dollars).
So far, German state prosecutors have named 13 suspects at Audi, the vast majority of which are low- to mid-level employees who used to, or still work within, its motor engineering division.
The only senior manager who has been formally charged is Wolfgang Hatz, former Head of Aggregate Development at Audi and Porsche director. Hatz has repeatedly denied the allegations against him but remains in police custody.
Like Volkswagen, Audi has already partially confessed to criminal behavior in the manipulation of diesel engines. However, state prosecutors are still intent on determining how precisely the widespread fraud occurred and have been focusing their investigation on technical staff complicit in the emissions cheating towards this end.
In the meanwhile, proceedings to fine Audi's management for neglecting its supervisory duties are also underway. Audi has stressed in a series of statements that, with the exception of one former manager, there was no evidence of misconduct from contemporary or former executives.
The Munich State Prosecution Office has recently widened its investigation against Audi from 80,000 allegedly manipulated diesel vehicles in the U.S. alone to 253,000 vehicles, including some Porsche cars equipped with Audi motors, in both Germany and the U.S.
