Anchor: A joint government-private probe team has found that German automaker BMW covered up defects in its models and put off recalls which led to a series of incidents where its vehicles caught fire in South Korea. The Transport Ministry plans to file a complaint against BMW with the prosecution and impose an eleven billion-won fine. 
Our Bae Joo-yon has more. 

Report: On Monday, a joint government-private probe team announced the result of its five-month probe on a series of BMW vehicles catching fire.

The team said it obtained documents that suggested BMW headquarters set up a task force in October 2015 to deal with problems involving cracks in its vehicles' exhaust gas recirculation(EGR) coolers.

The investigators said they found internal files dating back to July of last year in which the carmaker mentions EGR cooler cracks and holes in the intake manifold in detail.

BMW had earlier claimed it became aware of the link between the EGR problem and the fires in July of this year.

The team also said it concluded that BMW sought to conceal the defects by being 153 days late in presenting a report on technical analysis data that was due in the first half of this year. 

With the team’s findings, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will file a complaint with the prosecution against the German carmaker and slap a fine of eleven-point-two billion won. 

On the cause of the car fires, the probe team said that faulty EGR valves were to blame, not a defective bypass as claimed by the automaker.

The investigators plan to call on BMW to re-inspect and replace the intake manifold in some 170-thousand vehicles it has recalled. They also urged BMW to promptly comment on the probe results, adding that based on the automaker’s statement, decisions will be made on further recalls.
Bae Joo-yon, KBS World Radio News.