Francesco Nicodemo, an Italian political consultant known for his work with the country’s center-left Democratic Party (Partito Democratico), has publicly claimed he was targeted with Paragon spyware, expanding the ongoing spyware scandal that has gripped Italy.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Nicodemo said he had chosen to stay silent for ten months because he “did not want to be used for political propaganda,” but that “the time has come” to speak out. “It is time to ask a very simple question: Why? Why me? How is it possible that such a sophisticated and complex tool was used to spy on a private citizen, as if he were a drug trafficker or a subversive threat to the country?” he wrote.
The Italian news outlet Fanpage first reported that Nicodemo was among several people who received a WhatsApp notification in January, alerting them that their devices had been targeted by Paragon spyware.
Nicodemo’s case adds to a widening list of Italian victims that includes journalists, immigration activists, and business executives. According to The Citizen Lab senior researcher John Scott-Railton, who has investigated spyware abuses for years, the pattern of cases “doesn’t look good for Paragon or for Italy.” He said the Italian government has clarified some cases but left others “troublingly unclear.”
“Clarity from the Italian government is essential,” Scott-Railton said. “If they wanted to, Paragon could give everybody a lot more clarity on what’s going on. Until they do, these cases are going to remain a weight around their neck.”
Nicodemo’s colleague Natale De Gregorio, who works with him at Lievito Consulting, confirmed to TechCrunch that Nicodemo would not comment beyond his Facebook post and remarks to Fanpage.
It remains unclear which Paragon customer carried out the surveillance. However, Italy’s parliamentary intelligence oversight committee, known as COPASIR, confirmed in June that some victims in the country had been lawfully targeted by Italian intelligence agencies — the AISI (domestic) and AISE (foreign) — which report to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government.
Neither the Italian prime minister’s office nor Paragon’s parent company, REDLattice, responded to requests for comment.
In February, after reports surfaced that multiple Italian citizens had been targeted, Paragon cut ties with its Italian government customers, including AISI and AISE. A later COPASIR report in June concluded that while some hacking of immigration activists was authorized, there was no evidence that journalists such as Francesco Cancellato, director of Fanpage.it, had been targeted by Italian intelligence services. The committee did not investigate the case of his colleague Ciro Pellegrino.
Paragon, an Israeli spyware firm acquired by U.S. private equity giant AE Industrial Partners, has an active contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and has previously said that the U.S. government is among its customers.
Featured image credits: Pickpic
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