NOVEMBER 2, 2003

Police raid Toyota in industrial espionage probe

German police raided the Toyota racing factory in Germany as part of an ongoing investigation into industrial espionage. There have been rumours that the Toyota F1 car this year was a copy of the 2002 Ferrari and it seems that a complaint was made by Ferrari to the Italian authorities regarding a former Ferrari aerodynamicist who moved to Toyota in the course of 2002. There have been reports that one Toyota engineer has been arrested.

A Cologne police spokesman told Reuters that a man has been arrested in connection with the investigation.

The Toyota team is not the target of the investigation but rather the one individual involved.

The police seized computers, drawings and CD-ROMs during the raid which was carried out by the Federal Criminal Office in Germany on behalf of the local prosecution service in Modena, Italy.