Postbus subsidy fraud: Fedpol imposes fines on seven former employees

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The Federal Police Office, or Fedpol for short, has imposed fines on seven former post office and post office box employees in the biggest subsidy scandal in Swiss history. From the point of view of the federal investigators, you are guilty of fraudulent payments by PostBus – or at least you have not prevented this.

In concrete terms, in the Postbus affair, Fedpol punished five people for benefit fraud and two people for failing to prevent benefit fraud. The penalties are divided into conditional fines between 56,000 and 420,000 francs and unconditional fines between 12,000 and 60,000 francs. According to authorities, the conditions for a prison sentence have not been met.

Not yet legally binding

However, none of the penalty notices are currently legally binding. Those involved can object to the decisions. But Fedpol, responsible for the administrative criminal procedure, will also be responsible for the objections.

Postal subsidiary Postbus received excessive subsidies in regional transport for years. After the scandal came to light, the yellow giant had to return more than 200 million francs in excess subsidies to the public sector.

Other public transport companies also used tricks

Since the Federal Office of Transport made the scandal public in February 2018, voices have repeatedly arisen in the public transport sector that put the machinations at Postauto into perspective. Especially because the administrative criminal proceedings dragged on for a long time.

Meanwhile, it was discovered that several other public transport companies had received excessive subsidies, albeit to a much smaller extent than Postbus.

Source:Blick