Hacker gang had contacts with mafias and secret services

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 27 - A suspected gang of hackers who snooped on business and other figures in a huge operation involving stealing confidential data from police data bases also had contacts with Italy's mafias and the secret services, an anti-mafia prosecutor said Sunday.
    The alleged criminal association, at the center of the Milan investigation into the dossiers, enjoyed "high-level support, in various environments, including that of mafia crime and that of the secret services, even foreign ones" and the suspects "often promise and boast of being able to intervene in investigations and trials", said the prosecutor of the Milanese anti-mafia investigative directorate DDA, Francesco De Tommasi.
    He said the group linked to the Equalize company has a "cluster" structure where each "component" and "collaborator" in turn has "contacts in the police force and in other public administrations" with which to "illegally obtain data". (ANSA).