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No evidence yet of spying at Renault: French police
AFP - Friday, March 4
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PARIS (AFP) - – Police probing alleged industrial espionage at French car giant Renault said Thursday they had drawn a blank, as a case Paris once branded evidence of "economic warfare" appeared set to fizzle out.
A source close to the investigation told AFP intelligence officers had been "astonished" by the weakness of the evidence Renault presented against three of its executives sacked over claims they had leaked company secrets.
Police have found no trace of Swiss bank accounts the accused men were alleged to have held, he said, suggesting that Renault's internal inquiry could have been fed false account numbers by squabbling managers.
And a source close to the Liechtenstein police's probe into the case said alleged bank accounts said to he held there by the trio did not exist either.
"Apparently, the information was wrong. The investigation led to no results," said the Liechtenstein official.
In January, Renault sacked three senior managers over alleged industrial espionage and launched legal action against them. The trio have denied the allegations and have hit back with lawsuits for defamation.
Renault has suggested the executives had sold pricing data on the firm's future electric car models -- which are key to the French giant's strategy, based on an enormous investment in as yet unproven technology.
When the scandal erupted, the French government sounded an alarm, warning of "economic warfare", amid press reports accusing China of paying off European executives for trade and technology secrets.
China denied any involvement.
A former police detective working for Renault's internal security service gave the DCRI police intelligence agency the details of his internal inquiry, but the serving officers were unimpressed, the police source told AFP.
Investigators quickly began to doubt that what had happened amounted to industrial espionage, he said. It appeared to relate to a simple internal dispute that might be dealt with by an industrial tribunal, he added.
The three executives were sacked after Renault received anonymous letters accusing them.
An internal inquiry accused them of receiving bribes of 50,000 to 60,000 euros in numbered Swiss bank accounts for the allegedly leaked company data, but these alleged accounts have not been traced, the source said.
When the DCRI team -- "astonished by the weakness of the case" -- asked the Renault security official for more evidence he refused to reply, which they found "strange, coming from a former criminal investigator".
Since the initial buzz generated by the scandal has died, doubts have been increasing about the quality of Renault's evidence, with magistrates and state officials critical of its level of cooperation with the police inquiry.
On Monday, Renault's number two director Patrick Pelata visited Prime Minister Francois Fillon's office to discuss the inquiry.
Press reports afterwards said he had admitted the firm was probably the victim of a "manipulation" linked to internal score-settling.
But on Thursday, Renault's lawyer Jean Reinhart was still denying that the firm had been either the victim or the author of such a manipulation of the evidence, and insisted that its case had yet to be disproved.
"I reject totally this term 'manipulation'," he told Europe 1 radio. "We are not looking at something like that. For the moment we have no information that shows that the initial thesis, that of spying, is false."
A judicial source told AFP that Paris prosecutors hoped to receive within eight to 10 days evidence of the existence or otherwise of any bank accounts held by the executives in Switzerland or Liechtenstein.
And a source close to the Liechtenstein police's probe into the case said that alleged bank accounts said to he held there by the trio did not exist.
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