Dossiers and espionage, searches underway in Rome: investigations into former members of the Services, entrepreneurs and the clandestine group «Squadra Fiore»

We also need to understand who these dossiers were for, who the mandates were, or who they were selling this information to.

Two lines of investigation

They would be at the center of the searches two events: the first is the connection between the AISI contracts and the company of the entrepreneur Carmine Saladino to which between 2022 and 2024 the main Italian counter-espionage agency would have assigned direct orders for over 39 million euros for the supply of jammersoftware by facial recognitionvideo surveillance systems.

The second line of investigation is more specific on the illicit espionage conducted by the “Flower Team” and involves those who were part of it and would also involve theformer deputy director of Dis (Security Information Department) Giuseppe Del Deo and Samuele Calamuccithe hacker linked to the other spy firm Equalize, and a handful of members of the team.

Also contested, as reported in the search decree, is the use of official secrets by public officials and corruption for acts contrary to official duties. In particular, Tavaroli and three other suspects are accused of having set up and managed «a criminal group, with a logistical base in Rome, which acquired and marketed confidential information illicitly exfiltrated from national databases protected by security systems, making use of IT and operational tools similar to those used by law enforcement (electronic devices for the collection of private conversations and for the identification and inhibition of the collection, access points to databases protected by security systems)”.