Police In Berlin Storm Heckler & Koch Headquarters

[twyacht]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/berlin-police-storm-headquarters-of-german-gunmaker-heckler-and-koch/

Berlin Police Storm Headquarters of German Gunmaker Heckler and Koch

    * Posted on November 10, 2011 at 10:20am by Buck Sexton Buck Sexton

(The Blaze/AP)- Some 300 police officers searched the headquarters of Heckler & Koch Thursday amid allegations the German arms maker bribed Mexican officials to boost its sales, prosecutors said.

The firm is under investigation on suspicion that it “bribed officials in Mexico using cash payments for several years” in connection with arms deliveries between 2005 and 2010, Stuttgart prosecution spokeswoman Claudia Krauth said.

A spokeswoman for Heckler & Koch GmbH confirmed the raid but declined to elaborate.

Prosecutors, who also ordered several apartments to be searched, are investigating whether German officials were also bribed.

The company is already under investigation for allegedly providing its G36 assault rifle to Mexican police in the states of Chiapas, Chihuahua, Guerrero and Jalisco, where Germany prohibits such exports over alleged human rights violations.

The company, whose headquarters in Oberndorf near Stuttgart was already searched by prosecutors in connection with that investigation in December, denies any wrongdoing.

It maintains it did not deliver weapons to those four states, but only to the country’s Mexico City-based central weapons purchasing authority, which is overseen by the Defense Ministry.

Rights groups such as Amnesty International have accused Mexican government troops and police of abuses in the ongoing fight against drug traffickers. Germany’s tight weapons export regulations allow arms deliveries to Mexico, but only outside of the four states where the human rights situation is in question.

Heckler & Koch is also under investigation following the discovery of its assault rifles in Libya.

The company has said in that case it is fully cooperating with prosecutors and hopes that “light will be shed” on how the now defunct Libyan regime obtained those weapons. They were part of a 2003 government approved arms shipment bound for Egypt, it said.

Heckler & Koch also said it can neither deny nor confirm German media reports alleging that a son of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi visited the company’s headquarters in 2003.

*****

Hmmmm......Interesting..... A "global" arms company, selling guns "globally".....

What's next? Glocks and Sigs found in Africa?  I'm shocked,....

[Pathfinder]

The Berlin Police's new motto . . . . . .




FREE GUNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[twyacht]

I think HK should do a promo sale if the price was discounted "ever so slightly",.....I'd have a G-36, and a USP 45, in a NY Minute.

OBTW, I almost forgot....

“More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.” Obama, April 17,2009

[tombogan03884]

Bribery ? In Mexico of all places ?
I'm shocked.
Shocked I tell you.
Industrialized nations have laws against it, but in the 3rd world it's how business gets done.
Every body knows it, HK just had the effrontery to get caught.

[r_w]

Considering their disdain for selling normal citizens their guns, I ain't got ANY sympathy.  F$#* em

[Sponsor]

[kmitch200]

Considering their disdain for selling normal citizens their guns, I ain't got ANY sympathy.  F$#* em

I can see their public affairs dept working on a statement:  "Yes we got caught - but we still hate you."

[Rastus]

I can see their public affairs dept working on a statement:  "Yes we got caught - but we still hate you."

Yeah, that makes me feel bad every time I pick up that USP.

[twyacht]

So HK made cozy deals with the Mexico City Federalis,..(who have no history of corruption) for arms sales....and they "walked" into states of Mexico verboten by German export laws for human rights violations?

Like Tom posted,....I'm shocked..Shocked I say...

I'll bet HK honors those Federalis customer service calls faster than the average "Joe" here in the States....

 

[tombogan03884]

No matter what you think of HK, and I'm not a fan,
 (we should bear in mind that a lot of it may not be because HK's management are dicks, but rather because of the anti gun culture so prevalent in Europe )
This is really nothing, it's part of doing business, pretty much every American air craft manufacturer has faced the same charges at one time or another.

[fightingquaker13]

Huh, when I read the thread title I thought that it was just that they finally got fed up withe lousy CS and decided to do something about it. On second thought, that still might be the case.
FQ13