AGCOM fines Retelit Digital Services and Tekmind €822,500 for spoofing Italian telephone numbers
Fines have been imposed on the two companies for failing to monitor the numbers used by their call centres. In the first eight months of the year, the filters blocked 191 million calls from abroad
The call may come from abroad. But the number on the screen is Italian, with a setup designed to persuade us to answer. Unfortunately, this is nothing new. And now, in the battle against unauthorised marketing calls (because that is what lies behind this scheme), Agcom has handed down fines to two companies: a €700,000 fine for Retelit Digital Services and a €122,500 fine for Tekmind. In total, €822,500 for failing to implement control measures over the use of telephone numbers.
The measures, adopted on 23 September, follow a supervisory investigation launched in November 2025 on the basis of numerous reports. At the heart of the allegations are the obligations of telephone number assignees: to verify the accuracy of the numbers used by call centres, including whether they have been generated through spoofing, and to manage the numbers assigned to them with due care. It is in relation to this oversight of the supply chain that the Authority is taking action.
Spoofing is a trick that alters the caller’s number displayed on the recipient’s telephone. The display shows a number that does not correspond to the actual origin of the call. For the person answering, it is difficult to recognise the deception from the screen alone: a national dialling code or an Italian mobile number can make even a call originating from abroad seem less suspicious.
To combat this practice, AGCOM has required operators to implement filters on international calls that appear to originate from Italian numbers. And the results, according to figures released by the Authority, are significant: in the first eight months of 2026, around 191 million calls from abroad were blocked, either because they used a spoofed Italian number or because the numbering did not comply with international specifications. That is nearly 790,000 per day, accounting for 7.2 per cent of total international traffic.
The largest proportion relates to mobile phones: 148 million calls were blocked, accounting for 49 per cent of those made from abroad to Italian mobile numbers. A further 38 million calls were made to national landline numbers; 4.6 million used numbers that did not comply with international standards.
