Sensitive information taken from databases, suspects include Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, Matteo Arpe and Enrico Pazzali

There are 'a few dozen' suspects in the Milan investigation into an alleged large-scale dossier, especially in the world of business and finance. This was explained at a press conference by the Milan DDA prosecutor Francesco De Tommasi. Prosecutor Marcello Viola clarified that the investigation, conducted by the Carabinieri of the Varese Investigative Nucleus, began "in 2022" and brought to light an "articulated network of people who, for profit and other purposes, acquired and took data" especially from the Sdi, the inter-force database on police records. Among the alleged offences, in addition to those that have already emerged, are 'possession and installation of equipment' for abusive wiretapping and 'personal aiding and abetting'. At the centre of the investigation, as it emerged, is the Milan company Equalize owned by Enrico Pazzali (under investigation) and administered by former police officer Carmine Gallo (under house arrest). Also involved were 'other companies', three in total that were seized, 'of the same kind', i.e. dealing with investigations and risk analysis, also on behalf of companies, and which would have followed an illicit track of data collection for those files. Thus, 'even prejudicial information on persons', companies and enterprises would have been collected.

Sixty people, from what has emerged, are under investigation in the Milan DDA and DNA investigation into the alleged 'packaging' of dossiers through the illicit acquisition of confidential information from strategic databases. Among the suspects, according to what has emerged, there are also entrepreneurs involved in the creation of those reports, commissioned to the hacker group. Entrepreneurs who, according to the prosecutors, were aware of the illegal action of collecting information. The Public Prosecutor's Office had requested 16 precautionary measures for as many people and the gip ordered domiciliaries for four and interdictions for two suspects, i.e. six measures in total.

It was 'public officials', i.e. members of the law enforcement agencies involved, who had 'credentials for access' to strategic databases. The organisation, it was made clear, wanted to 'carry out, on the specific mandate of clients', including 'important Italian and foreign companies', dossiers, reports, which were 'sometimes disguised as journalistic news in order to conceal the illicit origin' of the extraction of that confidential information.

For Viola, one can 'speak of a group of hackers', who had 'very sophisticated equipment'. The suspects also include the clients of the commissioned reports, accused of abusive access to a computer system, such asLeonardo Maria Del Vecchio and Matteo Arpe. The prosecutors clarified that the gip Fabrizio Filice did not 'entirely accept the request, even though he shared the accusatory structure, but for some he opted for a different type of measure and for others he did not consider the precautionary needs to exist'.

A precautionary measure had also been requested for Enrico Pazzali, which was not granted by the gip. The public prosecutor's office led by Viola, with the prosecutor of the DDA De Tommasi, will 'appeal to the re-examination' on the requests not granted by the gip. National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Melillo emphasised the importance 'of the coordination system of investigations on this side of the cyber security attacks'. And he explained that in this illicit market, which is also made up of 'fabricated information and manipulation capabilities', 'the rarer the goods, the higher the price'. Prosecutor De Tommasi then clarified that 'this line of investigation emerged as a result of contacts between individuals involved in dossier activity' and others in another investigation. Some of the investigation companies involved had also had 'relations' in the past for activities with some public prosecutors' offices.

There are also the Erg group, through four managers now under investigation, and Barilla, through the head of internal security, among the customers of Equalize, the company around which, according to the investigation of the Milan DDA and DNA, would have revolved the system of dossier and the "market of confidential data", and whose CEO, former policeman Carmine Gallo, is among the four people from yesterday placed under house arrest and the owner Enrico Pazzali, president of the Fiera Milano Foundation, is also under investigation. In the order of the gip Fabrizio Filice, executed yesterday afternoon by the Carabinieri of the Varese investigation unit, there are two chapters devoted respectively to the Erg and Barilla affair. In both cases, the data collected concern certain employees, in the first for suspected insider trading, in the second to find out who from inside the Parma company had passed information to a journalist.

In the investigation into alleged dossier-tagging activities, there are 'intercepted conversations' in which the suspects said they wanted to acquire confidential information even 'through direct violation of IT structures, and on this point appropriate technical verifications will be carried out' to find 'evidence' of those intentions. This was explained by Milan Prosecutor Marcello Viola at a press conference. Viola, with National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Giovanni Melillo at his side, explained that among the 'illegal activities' of the organisation, which carried out 'reports' on commission, there were also 'video recordings' and 'recordings of conversations intended to be disseminated', as well as illicit acquisitions of 'whatsapp chats, e-mails', but also 'telephone records' and the use of equipment to detect the 'positioning' of mobile phones. For the latter activity, the group used 'Swiss subjects'. At the press conference, it was explained that the alleged criminal association only last year made illegal profits by selling this information for 'hundreds of thousands of euro'.

"I believe that we are not safe and will not be safe until the law and technology at our disposal has come into line with that of crime. Generally speaking, technology is ahead of laws, in all areas, starting with bioethics, when it was realised that the boundary between life and death was not compatible with existing laws. The ill-intentioned are always ahead of the states themselves, they have hacked even the Kremlin, efforts are needed to align existing laws but also by working imaginatively, foreseeing what they can do without having to chase them'. This was said by the Minister of Justice, Carlo Nordio, in a video link with CasaCorriere, commenting on the new hacking case, this time at the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office.

"Dr. Arpe is astonished because it was a professional assignment of the family limited to a private matter following the disappearance of his father. He has given and will give full cooperation to the investigators'. This was written in a note by Davide Steccanella, lawyer of banker Matteo Arpe, who is under investigation in Milan in the enquiry into an alleged illicit activity of collecting confidential information from strategic databases at national level.