Italian police said Tuesday that
they have smashed a cyber-espionage ring that for years
collected sensitive data on politicians, public institutions and
administrations, professional studios and top entrepreneurs.
The investigation, conducted by the postal police, led to the
arrest of two people - nuclear engineer Giulio Occhionero and
his sister Francesca Maria.
The arrested pair are residents of London but are domiciled
in Rome and are well known in the world of high finance, sources
said.
Ex-premiers Matteo Renzi and Mario Monti and European Central
Bank President Mario Draghi are among the top figures allegedly
spied on by the pair, sources said on Tuesday.
The siblings allegedly stored the sensitive data on servers
seized in the United States by the FBI, the sources said.
They allegedly had a database containing 18,327 usernames,
1,793 of them accompanied by a password, and divided into 122
categories tagged 'Nick' indicating the target category
(politics, business, etc.) or their initials, police said
Tuesday.
Renzi's email was allegedly violated in June 2016.
Computers linked to Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of
the Pontifical Council for Culture, were infected too.
Giulio Occhionero was the venerable master of the Paolo
Ungari Masonic lodge.
Investigators believe that the espionage was not an isolated
initiative by the arrested pair, saying they have found links to
the so-called P4 power-seeking cliche and to wheeler-dealer
Luigi Bisignani.
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