On Wednesday, Federal prosecutors announced criminal charges against the 6 Volkswagen executives for their roles in the company’s emissions-cheating scandal. This is said to be a sharp turn by a departing administration that is trying to regain its image of being soft on corporate crime.

Six Volkswagen Executives Charged In Emissions Scandal

As reported by Edngadget, Volkswagen agreed to pay an amount of $4.3 billion to settle the criminal and civil charges brought by the United States Justice Department over the company's use of emissions-cheating technology. This happened in millions of its diesel vehicles sold all over the world.

The 6 executives include the former head of development of the company, Volkswagen, brand and the head of engine development. One of those charged on Wednesday, Oliver Schmidt, was arrested in Florida last week; the other five are believed to be in Germany, according to The New York Times.

As part of the said settlement, Volkswagen pleads guilty to 3 criminal charges and it will be needed to work with an independent monitor for 3 years. As far as records are the concern, this is the largest penalty handed down to an automaker all through the US history.

In the meantime, Volkswagen is already on the hook for $14.7 billion after it completed a case against the California regulators and the owners of about 475,000 vehicles compromised by the company's "defeat device." Volkswagen plans to buy back all of these cars and otherwise compensate the owners, and it promises to devote billions to enhancing and improving its zero-emission infrastructure.

Volkswagen On Clean Air Act

Volkswagen also formally declared guilty to charges of conspiracy to perform wire fraud and to violate the Clean Air Act. It is considered as customs violations and obstruction of the justice. Many of the 600,000 cars in the United States are equipped with emissions-cheating software were imported from either Germany or Mexico.