In various Italian cities, the State Police and Carabinieri carried out numerous searches ordered by the District Prosecutor of Rome to association for the purpose of international terrorism, as part of a joint operation involving a total of 29 people.
The operation constitutes the epilogue of the largest and most complex investigation aimed at preventing the terrorist threat of a religious origin deriving from the use of the darkweb.
The investigative activity, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor of Rome, began over a year ago following the report - acquired by theAnti-terrorism of the State Police and from ROS and through the Federal Bureau Investigation US - the existence of a propaganda site of the terrorist organization Isis present in Dark web Internet users present in Italy could have accessed.
In particular, a voluminous list of about 2000 IP addresses attributable to visitors to the site in question - probably geolocated in Italy because associated with provider national - which, according to preliminary information, in addition to having frequented the virtual environment on several occasions hidden, they had downloaded propaganda material from the terrorist organization.
A preliminary analysis of the substantial amount of technical data acquired by the Italian telephone companies - conducted together by the specialized staff of the Service for the Fight against Extremism and External Terrorism of DCPP / UCIGOS and Antiterrorism Department of the ROS - made it possible to identify real users located in Italy against which further investigations have been initiated on site by the territorial articulations of the ROS ofArms of the Carabinieri and Digos of the State Police.
The traditional type of insights - that is, personal data checks, information activities sector, observation and shadowing services - were supported by targeted IT technical activities that they allowed to isolate 29 positions referring in particular to people who have already emerged in previous investigative activities or reported by national intelligence sector or holders of social profiles characterized by extremist content or simply highlighted for having manifested indicators of radicalization.
Through technical investigations and accurate analysis of the access to the dark web, numerous connections to the virtual page by the identified users were detected, during the whole time period examined, documenting that there was a constant consultation of the contents and not a simple casual or extemporaneous vision.
Although the investigated site had been removed from the network - according to the well-established technique whereby the administrators of the pages frequently transfer the contents of the Dark web in ever new virtual spaces, in order to make their identification even more difficult - through a capillary research work in global network it was possible to reconstruct in detail the contents of the webpage.
Among the material detected - consulted almost daily and downloaded by users subject to today's searches - there are videos and propaganda images of the terrorist organization Islamic state, collections of the magazine Al Naba, official apparatus of Daesh, press agency releases Amaq, the dissemination body of the main operations of Isis in the world, audio from the media house Al Furqan and the official radio station of IS Al Bayan, manuals of combat techniques and self-training, as well as multimedia files containing the historiography of the Caliphate.
During the searches - which involved the cities of Rome, Milan, Turin, Ancona, Bergamo, Padua, Verona, Rovigo, Vercelli, Bologna, Cesena, Rimini, Latina, Arezzo, Foggia, Reggio Calabria, Ragusa, Trapani and Caltanissetta - numerous were kidnapped device in addition to computer material, on which the in-depth analysis of the Digos and of the joints of the anti-crime chain of the Rose, supported by their respective Central offices.