Leonardo Marija del Vekio, Photo: Screenshot/Youtube
Italian police have placed four people under house arrest as part of an investigation into alleged illegal access to state databases, and are investigating dozens of people, including Leonardo Maria Del Vecchi, the son of the late billionaire founder of the Luxotica corporation, a source said on Saturday, Reuters reports.
Del Vecchi’s lawyer said that he is “eagerly awaiting the completion of the preliminary investigation so that he can prove that he has nothing to do with the events in question and that the accusations against him are unfounded.”
“It seems that he is quite the victim given the initial allegations and the negative outcome of the search,” said lawyer Marija Emanuela Maskalchi in a statement.
The alleged access to the database was carried out by a private intelligence firm run by a former police officer, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio is the son of Leonardo Del Vecchio, who founded “Luxotica”, a corporation that also owns the “Ray Ban” brand.
Tycoon Leonardo Del Vekiijo passed away in 2022.
The illegal access to confidential data, which was allegedly sold to customers or used to blackmail businessmen and politicians, began as early as 2019 and continued until March 2024, a court document seen by Reuters showed.
Prosecutors in the city of Milan allege that the business intelligence agency used three key databases: one to collect alerts on suspicious financial activity; another is used by the national tax agency with citizens’ bank transactions, utility bills, income balances; and the database of police investigations, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
Italy’s national anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, told reporters on Saturday that the investigation “rang an alarm bell” as it shed light on a “giant market of classified information” that had acquired a “business dimension”, Italy’s ANSA agency reported.
The investigation follows another recent investigation into a major data leak at Italy’s largest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo.
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Source: www.vijesti.me
