Expensive vacations, exclusive clothing, a home of your own: for many years, Ingo K. lived on quite a large scale as head of department at BMW. Now the 52-year-old works in the laundry – in the prison. Because the manager is said to have collected bribe payments in the millions with fake invoices and given preference to companies when awarding contracts. Before the 7th Criminal Chamber at the Munich I District Court, a hearing is being held against K. for corruption, breach of trust and tax evasion.
It is not the first trial against the mechanical engineer: as early as December 2022, K. had been sentenced to four years and three months in prison in 15 cases for breach of trust. The court saw it as proven that Ingo K. had managed to pocket a good three million euros with ordered supplier invoices. The current process is about a Munich company that, among other things, offered services in the field of electronic data processing and had long-standing business relationships with BMW. Two former managing directors of this company are also in the dock.
Public prosecutor Maximilian Quadbeck accuses the trio of having developed a profitable business model for everyone from 2007 to 2015 with a model made up of bogus invoices, bribe payments and preferential treatment when awarding contracts. Ingo K., on the other hand, claims that he had suggested the IT company’s “triangular deal” as a request without promising additional orders from BMW.
Ingo K. fooled the IT company into believing that BMW had to buy back vehicles from the 7 series because of electronic defects. This is not possible through the dealer because you don’t want to provoke an “entrainment effect”. If the defects were made public in car forums, customers could demand a new car. The IT company was supposed to transfer the money needed for the buybacks to a company founded by Ingo K. The IT company could get the money back for future BMW orders via invoices. In this way, Ingo K. is said to have stolen around six million euros. The public prosecutor’s office assumes that the IT company was well aware that these were bribe payments for future orders.
In court, K. explains that these car buybacks are quite common in the industry. Only in his case they had never happened. The former managing directors of the IT company are accused of bribery or aiding and abetting, as well as aiding and abetting embezzlement and tax evasion.
Ingo K.’s house has now been foreclosed on. He puts his tax debts at two million euros and half a million euros in “other liabilities”. So far, BMW has not issued a claim for damages. A verdict is expected at the end of May.