Authorities raided a pair of Volkswagen's offices in France on Friday, hitting the company's French headquarters in Villers-Cotterêts and another office in Paris, all in connection with the company's recent emissions scandal.
Investigators from France's environment and public health office conducted the searches Friday at Volkswagen France's offices and seized computer equipment, the Paris prosecutor's office said Sunday. A spokeswoman for Volkswagen France, Leslie Peltier, confirmed the searches and said Volkswagen is fully cooperating with the police.
According to CNN, authorities in Italy led a similar raid on the Bologna headquarter's of Lamborghini, which is owned by Volkswagen.
The company is struggling to respond to a far-reaching controversy in which Volkswagen and several of its brands — including Porsche and Audi — installed software that was designed to deliberately mislead regulators about the cars' diesel emissions. The software saved Volkswagen the trouble and expense of installing bulky mechanical hardware to reduce the power of their pollutants.
That software tweak, in turn, allowed Volkswagen to falsely claim that the cars — including the hipster-favorite Volkswagen Golf — were environmentally friendly. Many owners, looking to be eco-friendly, felt betrayed by the company's deception.
In the wake of the scandal, Martin Winterkorn stepped down as CEO and the carmaker is feeling heat from all over, including here in the United States where the EPA is investigating if the company used a second piece of software to cheat on emissions tests.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press.