[Saba Sports News] According to Italian media reports, the Naples Public Prosecutor’s Office has cracked a major case involving police officers who illegally accessed and sold private data of footballers and celebrities. The incident involves two police officers who logged into internal systems improperly more than 730,000 times over a period of two years. Those implicated include personnel from the police force, tax authority, social security bureau and Italy Post. They have been charged with forming a criminal syndicate, unauthorized access to information systems, accepting bribes and disclosing official secrets. The suspects illegally extracted private records of celebrities including football stars, actors, singers and entrepreneurs from institutional databases, then sold the information to more than a dozen private investigation firms at fixed price rates: social security and tax data were priced at €6 to €11 per enquiry, while records from police databases cost up to €25. Investigators seized a server located in northern Italy, from which over one million pieces of private personal data were recovered. Notably, the list of victims includes former Inter Milan goalkeepers Júlio César and Alex Cordaz.
The editor believes that this is not an isolated case, and similar incidents are taking place across other parts of Italy, affecting thousands of victims. It is reported that 85 people are now under investigation, with 29 placed under mandatory precautionary measures, among whom four have been imprisoned.