So here’s the breaking news:
Mega Geopolitics @MegaGeopolitics
BREAKING: Israel's Mossad implicated in an espionage scandal targeting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and senior officials, four arrested, according to Yedioth Ahronoth. The Mossad worked with an agency founded by former members of Italy's secret services, which extracted personal data on politicians.
The Mossad extracting personal data on politicians? Say it ain’t so! Could it be … the ghost of Epstein lives? If you’re guessing that this scandal won’t be confined to Italy, you’re probably on safe ground.
So the big question—and here I flash my Latin, since the scandal is centered in Italy—cui bono? Who stands to benefit from bringing non-news—I mean, c’mon man! Does the sun rise in the east?—from bringing this to the attention of the world? Right. Mankind—that’s an easy one. But can we be more specific? How about BRICS? And yes, I have a reason for saying that BRICS could stand to benefit from exposing what could turn out to be a massive Anglo-Zionist espionage operation. I also have a reason for calling it an Anglo-Zionist operation.
This story appears to be breaking rather large. For our initial purposes Politico seems well informed:
Vatican, Israel implicated in Italy hacking scandal, leaked files reveal
Police wiretaps show the sprawling global nature of an investigation into Milan-based private detectives and their clients.
How sprawling? Again, this is a first take:
ROME — A massive hacking scandal that has engulfed Italy is now threatening to spill beyond its borders, sucking in Israel, the Vatican, the United Kingdom and Lithuania.
New claims have been made via police wiretaps that foreign powers were among those using a Milan-based private investigative firm to penetrate state security databases with the aim of obtaining secret information about financial activity, private bank transactions and police investigations.
Italian intelligence firm Equalize, which allegedly hacked information on thousands of people including politicians, entrepreneurs, athletes and even musicians, is accused of working for Israeli intelligence and the Vatican, police wiretaps leaked to Italian media show.
Members of the hacking network, including Nunzio Samuele Calamucci — the man prosecutors accuse of orchestrating the scheme — met with two Israeli agents at the firm's office in Milan in February 2023 to discuss a task worth €1 million, according to the leaked wiretaps.
The job was a cyber operation against Russian targets, including President Vladimir Putin's unidentified "right-hand man," and unearthing the financial trail leading from the bank accounts of wealthy figures to the Russian mercenary group Wagner. The information was then supposed to be passed on to the Vatican.
It's unclear from the leaked documents why Israeli intelligence and the Vatican were involved with the controversial Milan firm and what their reasons were for soliciting information on Russian targets, but their presence in the dossier has dramatically expanded the scope of Italy's sprawling investigation.
The Vatican did not respond to a written request for comment from POLITICO.
According to the wiretaps, the Israelis suggested a partnership to exchange information, offering “all of the original documents” from the EU's so-called Qatargate scandal, which involved allegations that people linked to the European Parliament accepted money or gifts in exchange for doing the Gulf state’s bidding in Brussels.
They also offered the Italian firm information that could help one of Equalizer’s alleged clients, the Italian energy giant Eni, with information on the “illicit trafficking of Iranian gas with Italian companies.”
The Israeli Embassy in Rome declined to comment.
So, the trail of stolen data goes from this shadowy private company to the Vatican to Israel—a laundering operation. And the target was Russia. And here’s a key paragraph:
Calamucci, who previously boasted of penetrating the Pentagon with the Anonymous hacktivist collective, frequently referenced dozens of hackers working for him in Colchester, England. The firm also made use of servers in the United States and Lithuania, where they felt they were less vulnerable, according to leaked documents.
Looks like what some guy once described as a “tangled web”. Earlier this week I was listening to Alex Mercouris and Tom Luongo. They featured a lengthy segment on the complicated politics of Italy and, especially, the impenetrable nature of the Italian Deep State. Luongo, as he usually does, stressed that Italy is basically run by the United States—Italy has more US military bases per capita than any other place on earth. We know that it’s also a hotbed of CIA activity. So, Anglo-Zionist op? And the UK involved? And the Mossad? Has the Vatican ever worked with any of those folks in the past? And surely the Mafia must be involved, too—this is Italy. Well … so none of this is exactly news, and no bet would be safer than that this is very far from being just another “Italian hacking scandal”. The leak is probably just to get this out in public, since there’s no way that this will go to a trial that would expose the real dimensions of what was going on and who was directing it.
Just a guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, somewhere in Russia, someone is receiving an award for a job well done. Of course, in Italy all the usual suspects—defense officials, security officials, the police—are totally up in arms and demanding/promising investigations. That’s as may be, but Italian reports draw attention to the international and multi-national character of the operation—and that’s undoubtedly the most important takeaway:
Italian media outlets described the case as a “conspiracy of the highest level that involves members of the Mafia and officials in the intelligence services, along with foreign intelligence services including the Mossad.”
And this from a guy who was in a position to know:
In the meantime … my guess is that this contingent is actually headed for Al Udeid in Qatar, rather than anywhere in Bahrein.
US Air Force Reinforcements for Israel en route. At least 2 x B-52H Nuclear-capable strategic bomber en route to the Middle East dragged by KC-135R's + squadron of F-16's to be deployed to Bahrain.
Sounds like another show of force. Yemen or Syria is a possibility, but any other country the b52 would be a sitting duck.
Reality - The newest B52H is 62 years old…
https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104465/
So Italy was ground zero for a tangled web of spy operations involving a "conspiracy of the highest level that involves members of the Mafia and officials in the intelligence services, along with foreign intelligence services including the Mossad.”
I wonder if George Papadopoulos, Joseph Mifsud, Simona Mangiante, Stefan Halper, representatives of the "Link Campus" in Rome, and Italian intelligence have any comments about any still unexplained tangled webs.