'Bank employee spied on VIP accounts with others'

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 11 - The former employee of Banca Intesa, Vincenzo Coviello, who is being investigated by Bari prosecutors for allegedly spying on the bank accounts of thousands of VIP clients including Premier Giorgia Meloni, was likely "acting together and under prior agreement with a person or more people yet to be identified" who requested the sensitive information, according to the six-page search warrant issued by judicial authorities that led to the seizure of his computers, hard disks, cell phone and tablet. The search warrant said the man is suspected of illegally accessing the financial data of leading institutional figures, their family members and aides "to obtain for himself and/or others, through the consultation of the data, information that, in the interest of the State's security or, anyway, in the domestic and international political interest of the State, should have remained secret", according to information in the warrant that became public on Friday.
    The search operation was carried out on Thursday. Meanwhile sources in Bari's State attorney's office said Italy's biggest bank Intesa Sanpaolo allegedly failed to promptly inform judicial authorities that it had discovered that its employee Domenico Coviello had illicitly accessed sensitive data from February 2022 until April 2024.
    Prosecutors are investigating the illicit access to the bank accounts of 3,572 clients such as premier Giorgia Meloni, her sister Arianna, the prime minister's former partner and journalist Andrea Giambruno, Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa, ministers and other top officials and VIPs. (ANSA).