Italy: Mega hack is ‘threat to democracy,’ FM says

Rome: Italy’s foreign minister lashed after a gang of alleged hackers was arrested for stealing information on high-profile politicians from state databases.

The compromised material included information from the Ministry of Interior archives, which were allegedly accessed more than 50,000 times by a private investigative firm, and targeted former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Senate President Ignazio La Russa, a close ally of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, according to local media reports.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the hack was “unacceptable” and “criminal.”

“This [hacking] is unacceptable, we have been saying it for a long time … Spying on people’s private lives and then using the information for economic or political purposes is really a threat to democracy.” Such information can be used by Russia “or other countries that are not our friends,” Tajani said at a party event.

He added that such information is often used as leverage in “internal and political battles.”

Police put four people under house arrest on Saturday in connection with the probe into private investigator Equalize, a Milan-based company run by a former police officer.

The accessing of confidential information, which was allegedly sold to clients and could be used to leverage or blackmail businessmen and politicians, covered a period between 2019 and 2024, prosecutors said.

The private investigators allegedly accessed one database monitoring suspicious financial activities; another one used by the national tax agency with citizens’ bank transactions, utility bills and income statements; and the police investigations database.

Italy’s national anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, told reporters Saturday the probe “rang alarm bells” because it shed light on the “gigantic market for confidential information” which has acquired “a business-like dimension.”

The investigation follows a recent probe into a separate breach at Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo that targeted Meloni and her sister.

On that case, Meloni demanded tough sanctions for people hacking politicians’ private information.

“I hope that prosecutors go all the way, because in the best of cases, behind this activity is a system of blackmail and extortion. And in the worst [case] we are looking at the crime of subversion,” she said.