SISMI-Telecom scandal - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The SISMI-Telecom scandal, uncovered in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

in 2006, refers to a surveillance scandal believed to have begun in 1996, under which more than 5,000 persons' phones were tapped.

First arrests

As part of the judiciary investigation on the Imam Rapito
Imam Rapito affair
The Abu Omar Case refers to the abduction and transfer to Egypt of the Imam of Milan Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar...

case, the Italian justice system discovered an illegal domestic surveillance

Surveillance

Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...

program run by Marco Mancini

Marco Mancini

Marco Mancini was the second-highest ranking officer of Sismi, the military intelligence agency of Italy until his 5 July 2006 arrest for his participation in the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr...

, former #2 of the SISMI

SISMI

Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....

military intelligence agency, with the help of Giuliano Tavaroli, former chief of security at the Italian Telecom

Telecom Italia

Telecom Italia is the largest Italian telecommunications company, also active in the media and manufacturing industries. Now a private concern listed on the Borsa Italiana, it was founded in 1994 by the merger of several state-owned telecommunications companies, the most important of which was...

company and of Pirelli

Pirelli

Pirelli & C. SpA is a diverse multinational company based in Milan, Italy. The company, the world’s fifth largest tyre manufacturer, is present in over 160 countries, has 20 manufacturing sites around the world and a network of around 10,000 distributors and retailers.Founded in Milan in 1872,...

, and private Florentine

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

detective Emanuele Cipriani. All authorized requests made by magistrates to make wiretaps passed by Tavaroli .

On July 21, 2006, Adamo Bove, predecessor of Tavaroli as responsible of security at the Telecom company and former DIGOS

DIGOS

The General Investigations and Special Operations Division , mainly known with its acronym DIGOS, is an Italian law enforcement agency, charged with investigating sensitive cases relating to terrorism, organized crime and serious offences such as kidnapping and extortion.It is a special operative...

member, committed suicide in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

. Bove had discovered a flaw in the system which enabled people to enter the Telecom system and implement wiretaps without leaving a trace . He had announced this fact to the Milan magistrates, leading to the top-secret investigation .

Giuliano Tavaroli, the chief of security of Telecom, was arrested on September 20, 2006, along with twenty others persons, including policemen and others members of the secret services, on charges of spying and corruption

Political corruption

Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

. The files included reports on the Democrats of the Left

Democrats of the Left

The Democrats of the Left was a social-democratic Italian political party and part of the Olive Tree electoral coalition, which merged with a number of centrist and leftist groups to form the Democratic Party on 14 October 2007...

(DS) and others politicians .

Marco Mancini and Emanuele Cipriani were arrested on December 13, 2006. They were charged of conspiracy

Conspiracy (crime)

In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...

of corruption and of revealing professional secrets. Mancini allegedly received money from Cipriani and Tavaroli, who constituted approximatively 30 reports on magistrates, journalists, businessmens and politicians and members of others intelligence agencies (SISDE

SISDE

Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica , was the domestic intelligence agency of Italy.With the reform of the Italian Intelligence Services approved on 1 August 2007, SISDE was replaced by AISI....

).

Using confidential information provided by Mancini via his work at SISMI, Cipriani is accused by the Italian magistrates to have constituted files on various figures of the political, mediatic and financial world .

5,000 targets

Targets of the surveillance program included La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...

reporters Giuseppe D'Avanzo and Carlo Bonini, who broke the Yellowcake forgery

Yellowcake forgery

The Niger uranium forgeries are forged documents initially revealed by Italian Military intelligence. These documents seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein in Iraq to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis....

story and who also broke this scandal. Valentino

Valentino SpA

Valentino SpA is a clothing company founded in 1959 by Valentino Garavani. Nowadays it is a part of Valentino Fashion Group. New creative directors Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli will take Alessandra Facchinetti's seat as creative designer...

's former creative director, Alessandra Facchinetti

Alessandra Facchinetti

Alessandra Facchinetti is an Italian fashion designer. In 2007 she was appointed the creative director at the fashion House of Valentino, on the retirement of Valentino Garavani. Previously she had been a designer at the House of Gucci...

, was also tapped . Further investigations uncovered that more than 5,000 persons (including politicians, magistrates, football players and referees ) had been placed under illegal surveillance. The scheme, allegedly instigated by Giulio Tavaroli and Marco Mancini, is believed to have began in 1996 . Data was analyzed using Enterprise Miner (from SAS System

SAS System

SAS is an integrated system of software products provided by SAS Institute Inc. that enables programmers to perform:* retrieval, management, and mining* report writing and graphics* statistical analysis...

) and Analyst's Notebook

Analyst's Notebook

Analyst's Notebook is a software product from i2 Limited used for data analysis and investigation. It is a part of the Human Terrain System, a United States Army program which embeds social scientists with combat brigades. Several investigations, including an investigation into fraud in the U.S....

.

According to La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...

, the main mystery concerned the exact use of these files. Money is one of the first, clear motive: participants to the deal, including Marco Mancini, Giuliano Tavaroli, Emanuele Cipriani, and a former SISDE

SISDE

fiduciary, Marco Bernardini, shared between them 20 millions euros.

External links

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