Siemens corruption probe widens: $556M

The Siemens corruption probe is widening after the German company found $556 million in suspicious transactions spanning seven years. The figure is nearly twice the amount the prosecutors had identified last month. Siemens also appointed new auditors Monday to review its books. The report also confirms that Thomas Ganswindt, a former senior executive and head of Siemens' telecom group, who resigned in September, has been arrested. An angry shareholders group subsequently called for the resignation of supervisory board chairman and former CEO (1992-2005) Heinrich von Pierer. von Pierer has shrugged off the demand. Siemens continues to attribute the alleged fraud to "individual acts" by current and former employees, but prosecutors are currently trying to figure out whether senior executives did enough to prevent the misdeeds, given the scale of the alleged corruption.

For more on the Siemens probe:
- take a look at this article from The Guardian