Italian justice announced on Wednesday charges against two unidentified people for spying for the benefit of Russian “intelligence”. The two accused are suspected of having “collaborated with the Russian intelligence services, in order to provide them with information of a sensitive nature”.
The searches revealed “the interest of Russian intelligence in mapping the video surveillance systems of the cities of Milan and Rome”, but also “the gray areas”, namely urban areas not equipped with surveillance cameras, specifies the prosecutor’s office, which indicated in a press release that it was initiating criminal proceedings for “corruption of (Italian) citizens by a foreign actor”, an offense aggravated by the fact that it was committed “for the purposes of terrorism and subversion”.
According to the conclusions of the preliminary investigation, from May 2023 they engaged “in search of classified documents, photographs of military installations and information on technicians specializing in drones and electronic security” , for remuneration in cryptocurrencies.
They had notably proposed to taxi companies in Milan to equip their vehicles with on-board cameras free of charge, with the objective – unknown to the taxi drivers – of handing over the images to Russian intelligence, which “could have exploited them for purposes multiple”.
