BMW Dynasty Breaks Silence on Its Nazi Past

THE INDEPENDENT: The family that owns Germany's luxury car manufacturer BMW has ended decades of silence about its role during the Nazi era and admitted to taking over scores of Jewish businesses and using tens of thousands of slave labourers at its factories during Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.

The disturbing revelations about the Quandt dynasty, which became a major BMW shareholder in 1960, are contained in an independent 1,200-page study commissioned by the family in 2007 after its ruthless Nazi-era business practices were exposed in a German television documentary. BMW was not implicated in the report.

"The Quandts were linked inseparably with the crimes of the Nazis," Joachim Scholtyseck, the Bonn historian who compiled and researched the study, concludes at the end of his report published this week. "The family patriarch was part of the regime."

Mr Scholtyseck established that Günther Quandt and his son Herbert, who both headed the dynasty during the Third Reich, willingly collaborated with the Nazi regime by employing an estimated 50,000 forced labourers in its arms factories. An average of 80 slave labourers per month died at Quandt factories and many were executed. » | Tony Paterson in Berlin | Thursday, September 29, 2011

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Extremist Preacher Abu Hamza's Three Sons Jailed for Luxury Car Scam
THE TELEGRAPH: Three sons of the extremist Muslim preacher Abu Hamza have been jailed for their part in a £1m luxury car scam.

Mohamed Mostafa . Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
The gang targeted makes including Mercedes, BMW and Range Rover which had been left in long-stay car parks.

They wrote to the DVLA to change their address and re-register the vehicles and when new log books were sent out they obtained a new set of keys from dealerships.

The cars were then sold on to unwitting third parties or used as collateral for loans.

Abu Hamza's sons Hamza Kamel, 22, and Mohamed Mostafa, 27, helped run the two-year fraud with the hook handed cleric's stepson Mohssin Ghailam, 28.

Martyn Bowyer, prosecuting, called the operation a "sophisticated, well-planned and professionally executed enterprise" that involved 32 vehicles which together were valued at more than £1m.

The court heard that Kamel admitted five counts of handling stolen cars and of laundering more than £14,000 of criminal money in relation to the scam was sentenced to two and a half years..

Mostafa, who lives with his brother in Acton West London, pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud by using false French passport to secure a £12,000 loan and to obtain keys for a BMW and was sentenced to two years.

Ghailan, from Shepherd's Bush, West London, described as a "key player", admitted conspiracy to defraud and was jailed for four years. >>> By Duncan Gardham, Telegraph Security Correspondent | Thursday, May 28, 2009