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PRIVACY

Telekom spy scandal investigators raid executives’ houses

Authorities investigating the spying scandal at Deutsche Telekom confirmed on Friday that they have raided properties owned by former Deutsche Post chief Klaus Zumwinkel and former Telekom boss Kai-Uwe Ricke.

Published: 13 March 2009 13:09 CET
Telekom spy scandal investigators raid executives' houses
Ricke, left, and Zumwinkel Photo: DPA

The properties searched over a two-day period included the imposing castle owned by Zumwinkel in Italy, his former home in Cologne and Ricke’s home in Switzerland, as well as the house of his wife in Bavaria.

Two computers were taken from the castle belonging to Zumwinkel, who was head of the supervisory board of Deutsche Telekom until last February.

Investigators still need to find out whether he knew of the mass spying undertaken by the company, or even ordered it.

Bonn’s state prosecutor has been looking at the spying scandal at Deutsche Telekom since last spring. Then the company partly confirmed media reports that the bank records of more than 100,000 workers had been checked to trawl for possible corruption operations. It said the incidences of checking telephone records was to try to track down the sources of leaks to the media.

Investigators say they have found evidence that the company took telephone records of supervisory board members as well as the workers’ council, journalists and other such as Frank Bsirske, head of the Verdi trade union.

At least 55 people are thought to have been spied upon in this manner.

Zumwinkel was given a two-year suspended sentence this January for tax evasion.

POST

Can you rely on Sweden’s Postnord to deliver cards and presents on time?

Wednesday marks the last day you can send first class letters or parcels in Sweden and still hope they'll make it in time for Christmas Eve. But how reliable is PostNord, the company which runs Sweden's postal service?

Published: 20 December 2022 15:16 CET
Can you rely on Sweden's Postnord to deliver cards and presents on time?

What can you still send and hope for it to be delivered by Christmas? 

The Christmas deadline for letters and parcels outside of Sweden already passed on December 12th, as has the deadline for ordering anything online and hoping for it to arrive on time, with most e-commerce companies advising customers that anything ordered later than December 19th will not arrive in time. 

But if you’re sending first-class letters, pre-paid parcels, and small packages for delivery through the letterbox, you can still send them up until December 21st. The same goes for other parcel services such as Postnord MyPack Home, PostNord MyPack Home small, PostNord MyPack Collect, and Postpaket parcels.  

And if you’re willing to pay a bit extra, you can send express mail letters, express parcels, and first class ‘varubrev’ small parcels up until December 22nd. 

“Those dates still apply. We have written in a press statement that if you send by those dates you can be pretty sure that they will arrive in time,” Anders Porelius, head of press at PostNord, told The Local on Tuesday. 

But can you trust Postnord to deliver when they say they will? 

Not entirely.

The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority, Sweden’s postal regulator, ruled on December 8th that the company was failing to meet its regulatory target of delivering 95 percent of all letters within two working days, with 28 million letters delivered late between June and November. 

An investigative documentary by TV4’s Kalla Fakta (Cold Facts) programme, was sent pictures showing huge piles of late, undelivered letters in one of PostNord’s terminals, and interviewed postal workers who said that they were unable to complete their deliveries now they had been moved from daily to every other day, as they had twice as many letters to deliver on the days when they worked. 

“You get yelled at by the customers, and rightly so, you get yelled at by your bosses, and you scold yourself because you feel like you’re not able to do enough,” said Emilia Leijon, one postal worker. “We pretty much never manage to deliver a whole satchel. There’s too much post and too little time.” 

What is PostNord doing about the delays? 

The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority has given the company until January 30th to carry out an analysis into why it is not managing to meet its targets, and to draw up an action plan of how it is going to improve. 

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