Fiber optic bribery: Raids in North Rhine-Westphalia
A Deutsche Telekom employee is said to have awarded contracts for fiber optic expansion to a construction company from Duisburg. For a fee.
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An employee of the DT subsidiary Telekom Technik GmbH is suspected of having accepted bribes. For this reason, the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia carried out 40 house searches on Tuesday morning and additionally had various safe deposit boxes opened. The reason for this is the results of investigations following a report by Deutsche Telekom itself.
In the course of the fiber optic expansion, Deutsche Telekom is investing a lot of money. Its subsidiary, Telekom Technik GmbH, repeatedly commissions external companies with construction work. A 37-year-old employee responsible for this in Bonn is said to have repeatedly commissioned a construction company from Duisburg, which in return secretly pocketed three percent of the contract value. In total, a mid-six-figure sum is said to have been involved. According to dpa, a total of ten people, mostly from the construction industry, are being investigated for “corruption and bribery in commercial transactions in a particularly serious case.”
Whistleblower provided tip
According to Telekom, an attentive colleague initially provided an anonymous internal tip. If the allegations are confirmed, the group's whistleblower system has therefore worked as it should. In any case, the suspicion has been substantiated, which is why the group finally filed a complaint.
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The State Criminal Police Office has been investigating since autumn [-] initially covertly, now openly. In addition to the workplace of the suspected Telekom employee, other company and residential properties were searched. The officers seized documents and had assets frozen.
At the end of February, Deutsche Telekom's fiber optic cables were available to 12.8 million households, companies, and authorities in Germany (“homes passed”) – one million more than at the end of September. However, only about one-sixth are likely to actually use the offer. The number of broadband connections operated by Deutsche Telekom as a whole, including DSL, even slightly decreased last year.
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