Italy has found no explosives in any of the roughly 6,000 schools that received emailed bomb threats on November 11, the Italian Government has said. Police searched buildings classroom by classroom after pupils were evacuated in many parts of the country.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni confirmed in a video message that evening that nothing had been found in any school. She said the emails were designed to spread fear rather than cause harm and that investigators and prosecutors were working with European partners to identify those responsible.
The message reached schools shortly before 10am. The Ministry of Education said it went to about 6,000 of the country’s roughly 7,600 state schools, though not all were evacuated.
The email was signed “Mikhail Andropov”, described as the leader of a “Vilayat of Misoginistan”. It claimed a remote-controlled device had been hidden in every building, threatened knife attacks on survivors and said a bomb had been placed in the Prime Minister’s car, Italian news agencies ANSA and Adnkronos reported.
The text was reportedly identical to one sent to 271 Italian schools on November 2, when the sender claimed to speak for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. ANSA said the latest message had been sent from a compromised account at a university in Taiwan.
Prosecutors in Genoa have opened a case for causing false alarm, disrupting a public service and making serious threats, possibly aggravated by terrorist intent. Early leads point towards Moscow, ANSA reported, though investigators have cautioned this could be deliberate misdirection.
The name used in the email echoes “Male State”, a Russian ultranationalist and misogynist movement founded by Vladislav Pozdnyakov and banned in Russia as extremist. A group using a similar name signed a threat sent to Rome’s Fiumicino airport on November 5.
Meloni linked the school emails to similar alerts in Ireland and the UK and to the hoax threats that hit at least 27 flights across Europe on November 5. European intelligence services have warned that Russia is preparing sabotage and disruption operations across the continent.
Interior minister Matteo Piantedosi said it was too early to speak of a single hand behind the threats. Defence minister Guido Crosetto said the aim was to spread terror and warned that more such messages would follow.
EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said on November 5 that it was too early to say whether the flight hoaxes were linked. “Any threats against civilians are unacceptable,” he wrote on X.
Meloni invited opposition leaders to Palazzo Chigi on the morning of November 12. The Democratic Party (PD), the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the Greens and Left Alliance (AVS) accepted, though opposition MPs had demanded she report to parliament.