On Wednesday, Mediterranea Saving Humans, an Italian nonprofit with the mission of rescuing immigrants who try to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Europe, said one of its founders was among the targets of a recent spyware campaign carried out against WhatsApp users.
In a press release, Mediterranea said WhatsApp notified its founder Luca Casarini last week that he had been targeted with spyware made by Paragon Solutions, an Israeli surveillance tech startup. On Friday, WhatsApp said it had disrupted an espionage campaign using Paragon spyware that targeted around 90 people.
At the time, the Meta-owned company said that among the targets there were journalists and members of civil society, without naming anyone. Since then some of the targets, including Casarini, have started to come forward.
The first person was Francesco Cancellato, the director of Fanpage.it, an Italian news website that has published investigations into organized crime and corruption. Last year the publication reported a multi-part documentary that showed some members of the youth wing of the party currently running the Italian government singing about fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, chanting Nazi slogans, and making racist remarks.
After Cancellato,Sweden-based activist Husam El Gomati also came forward. El Gomati has been critical of how Libya and Italy have collaborated to stop immigrants from crossing the Mediterranean. And now, Casarini is the latest person to have been notified by WhatsApp.
All three targets have one thing in common, their work, or that of their organizations, has been critical of the current Italian government, led by far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“The activities of rescue at sea and assistance to people imprisoned in Libyan camps or deported to the desert are the focus of attention of the Italian secret services, in particular the AISE, which operates in Libya and Tunisia,” Mediterranea said in its press release. “Some questions arise: did the Italian government authorize such an operation? Do the Italian secret services use Paragon software?”
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Do you have more information about Paragon, and this spyware campaign? From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email. You also can contact TechCrunch via SecureDrop.
So far, the Italian government has not answered that question, nor has the government commented on Cancellato nor Casarini’s case …