The United States has filed criminal charges against former Volkswagen AG boss Martin Winterkorn, accusing him of conspiring to cover up the German automaker’s diesel emissions cheating, in a rare attempt to prosecute a CEO for company actions. The indictment reopens the question of whether other senior Volkswagen executives knew about the scandal, which has dogged Europe’s biggest automaker for more than two years and led to a regulatory crackdown that is threatening thousands of jobs as customers increasingly shun diesel-powered cars, Reuters reported. Winterkorn, 70, is charged with four felony counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, wire fraud and violating the Clean Air Act from at least May 2006 through November 2015, after VW admitted using illicit software that allowed diesel cars to emit excess pollution without detection.
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