Deutsche Telekom yesterday forcefully denied a report in the International Herald Tribune suggesting that authorities were investigating its employees on suspicion of widespread corruption: the Trib suggested in a front page story that employees were suspected of collaborating with organised crime to defraud the phone company and its customers of as much as $335m a year; the key allegation is that large numbers of rank-and-file employees have been taking bribes to divert billing of long-distance calls from one customer to another, and said that authorities in several cities were investigating; This article is absolute nonsense, Telekom spokesman Klaus Czerwinski assured Reuters – there is no evidence of any manipulation by Telekom employees; public prosecutors in Dsseldorf and Cologne, who were cited by the paper, denied they were investigating Telekomers.
