according to an investigation done by the newspaper 20 minuten, an incredible case of corruption and extorsion was disclosed this week. did anybody read about it? in my opinion this is not an isolated case of official swindle (apparently the police department of zürich was always watching away for years). http://www.20min.ch/news/dossier/abg...story/14581683

Sorry, I must have missed something...what's illegal about it?

I'm also not understanding which part is the "incredible case of corruption and extorsion".

Questionable at best imo.

please, if you are interested just follow the link and read the article, can you read german?

I read the article.

I couldn't find any references to illegal activity, corruption, extortion or swindles. Not flaming, just asking for clarification

briefly: they manipulate the park-o-meters. if you park your car at the parking lot of the senator hotel in zürich, an hotel employee will reset the park-o-meter (with just a 50 cts coin) so your car appears to exceed your parking time. then, they call "autohilfe zürich" to tow your car away and claim CHF 400.– in concept of towing fees, hotel and tower split earnings. this practice is being cultivated at this hotel since many years with no police intervention. one of the guys from autohilfe zürich is a police administrative.

I see.

The article that you probably wanted to link to would have been this one then?
http://www.20min.ch/news/dossier/abg...story/10909756

well, i though that a lot of people would be aware of this case...
and yes the article i have linked is not the most adequate to have the first glimpse on the case

as insignificant this article seems to be, i believe that this is a very emblematic disclosure, though. with unsuspected connections...

update on this case is that the zurich police department appears to be tightly involved in the tow-in scandal.

Don't believe everything they write in 20minuten. It isn't the best newspaper...

i don't know if 20min is the best newspaper or the worst, but they have an investigation team that do their job. there is a video here: http://www.20min.ch/news/zuerich/story/26234384 where one of the owners of kidnapped cars, tells how the zürich police department rejected her dennounces against the AUTOHILFE ZÜRICH (and the ones of dozens of other persons, for that matter) systematically, no dennounces was ever recorded even though we are talking about bribe, which is an... illicit activity. it seems that now that the people will act as an interest group, the police will "investigate".

I think you have to salute 20 Minuten for taking this up so strongly.

I'd be livid. I'm sure someone somewhere is starting a Boycott website

they are indeed. at this time they published an article on police department chief Esther Maurer. from what i've read i assume that the tow-in affair is the tip of the iceberg of a corruption network. and the 20 min is trying to go to the very bottom of the case. very sui generis for swiss journalism.

Boycott the police? Cool.

My german aint good enough to get the whole shebang.
Are we saying the plod here are corrupt, or just a few people who work for autohilfe and the plod?

I'm surprised, that if this is a concerted attempt to extort money, that they would have found a more subtle and covert way to do it. The car owner knows how long he has been away from his car, so every instance has a very unhappy victim.

It hardly ground breaking stuff. Was yours one of the cars towed ?

dave

i feel that for the swiss standards this IS a very ground breaking issue, since for many swiss folks corruption exists only in the NYPD not at home. yes, 3 years ago my smart was towed away but i though i was the infractor, i paid the chf 400.– with a strange feeling though. the trick is since the park-o-meter doesn't extend a receipt you are never sure and of course, if you complain you lack of case proofs. a round business rolling for more than a decade, the unofficial figures are around 2.4 millions annual "revenues". not bad, huh?

autofilfe zurich appears to be an organized band of mild extorters, (400 francs is a lot of money to give away, still, not so much to engage a lawyer).
the police department it's currently being investigated to know why they rejected dennounces for so many years. by the way, the most prolific tow-in trucker is a police officer. who in turn is the guy in charge to grant tow-in licences to other companies. still, he only granted autohilfe zürich year after year. the folks made a nice business plan!

The problem there seems to be that the parking meter does not print out a ticket where ones has proof of until when they paid for. Thus it is difficult to proof anything, especially as some of the hotel employers seem to go and reset the park meters by paying CHF 0.50.

From what I read, now that this finally has been covered has received some media attention (after a former CEO of Hotelplan; or something like that; had been toed off a few weeks ago and started complaining quiet loud), some of the victims got together and filed for a lawsuite.

what entertainment :-)

?????????????

don't get it...