Francesco Nicodemo, a consultant who works with left-wing politicians in Italy, has been announced as the latest target of Paragon spyware in the country.
On Thursday, Nicodemus said in a Facebook post that he had not wanted to make his case public for 10 months because he “didn't want it to be used for political propaganda,” but now “the time has come.”
“It's time to ask a very simple question: Why? Why me? How could such a sophisticated and complex tool be used to spy on civilians as if they were drug traffickers or threats of state destruction?” Nicodemus wrote. “I have nothing more to say. Others must speak. Others must explain what happened.”
The online news site's fan page first reported the news that Nicodemus was among those who received a WhatsApp notification in January.
The revelation that Nicodemus was targeted by Paragon spyware once again widens the scope of Italy's ongoing spyware scandal. This scandal has gripped several victims from different walks of society. He is a political consultant who has worked for several journalists, immigration activists, prominent business executives, and now center-left democratic parties and their politicians.
Governments and spyware manufacturers have long claimed that their surveillance products are used against serious criminals and terrorists, but these recent incidents show that is not necessarily true.
“The Italian government has clarified the targets of some spyware and described the incidents, but others remain opaque,” said John Scott Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab. He has spent years investigating spyware companies and their abuses, including the use of Paragon spyware.
“None of this is good for Paragon or for Italy. That's why clarity from the Italian government is so important. I believe that Paragon could make it clearer to everyone what's going on if it wanted to. Until that happens, these incidents will continue to be a weight around their neck,” said Scott Railton, who confirmed that Nicodemus received the notification from WhatsApp.
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Natale de Gregorio, who works with Nicodemo at the public relations firm Lievito Consulting, told TechCrunch in an email that Nicodemo does not want to comment beyond what he has said on his fan page and in public posts on Facebook.
It is currently unclear which of Paragon's clients targeted Nicodemus, but an Italian parliamentary committee confirmed in June that some of the victims in Italy had been targeted by Italian intelligence services under right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
A spokesperson for the Italian Prime Minister's Office did not respond to TechCrunch's request for comment.
Jennifer Iras, vice president of marketing at REDLattice, a cybersecurity company that merged with Paragon after the Israeli spyware maker was acquired by U.S. private equity giant AE Industrial, also did not respond to a request for comment.
In February, after the first wave of victims came to light in Italy, Paragon severed ties with Italian government clients, particularly the intelligence agencies AISE and AISI.
In late June, the Italian Parliamentary Committee for Security of the Republic, known as COPASIR, concluded that some publicly identified Paragon spyware victims, namely immigrant activists, had been legally hacked by Italian intelligence services.
But COPASIR said there was no evidence that Francesco Cancellato, director of Italian news website Fanpage It, which has been investigating the youth wing of Italy's far-right ruling party led by Meloni, was targeted by either Italian intelligence agencies AISI or AISE.
COPASIR also did not investigate the case of Cancerato's colleague Ciro Pellegrino.
Paragon told TechCrunch that the U.S. government is also one of its customers and has an active contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.