Fight against online child pornography, financial cybercrime, subversive-terrorist threats are some of the sectors in which the Postal and Communications Police were also involved in 2022, as well as the "Sardinia" cyber security operations centre.
In the past year, a slight decrease in cases treated with regard to the online publication of child pornography material has been confirmed. In particular, as part of the law enforcement activity coordinated by the Centre, a total of 4,542 cases were dealt with, which made it possible to investigate 1,463 subjects, of whom 149 arrested for crimes connected to the matter of techno-mediated abuse to the detriment of minors, with an increase of people arrested by about +8% compared to the same period of the previous year.
While for the prevention activity 25,696 sites were viewed, of which 2,622 included in the black list and obscured, as they presented child pornography content.
In 2022 there were 424 online solicitations, the most involved group was that of children between the ages of 10 and 13. But the increase in victims under the age of 9 is worrying: social networks and online video games are the places of contact between minors and adults most frequently the scene of harmful interactions.
There was also a slight decrease in the cases of cyberbullying which can be interpreted as an effect of the normalization of children's habits: it cannot be excluded that the return to a social life without restrictions has had a positive influence on the quality of social interactions, relationships between peers and that the constancy of the awareness work carried out by the Postal Police, in the school structures, has kept the attention of adults and children themselves high on the need to act responsibly and correctly on the net.
In the year just ended, 323 cases of cyberbullying were dealt with.
Another phenomenon present in the annual report is that of sextortion, which usually affects adults - but not only - and relies on small frailties and personal needs, threatening, within a few clicks, the tranquility of people who, feeling ashamed, do not ask for help and they don't report.
During the year, 130 cases were treated, most of which in the 14-17 age range, more often to the detriment of male victims.
Among the operations carried out by the "Sardegna" Cyber Security Operations Center in the context of crimes against minors, we mention in particular the arrest of a 29-year-old resident in Cagliari found in possession of child pornography and the story of a eight years old, lured on the chat of an online game called "Among Us", who sent photos and videos in which she practiced auto-eroticism to a self-styled twenty-one year old from the Milan area, who in turn sent her photos in which he was filmed completely naked.
The insights started from the Carabinieri station in Sassari, where the mother of the minor went, delivering a note written by her daughter in which the girl had written down a number, judged by the military to be a telephone serial. The activities carried out by the Sassari Operational Section employee, delegated by the Cagliari Public Prosecutor's Office, carried out on the minor's mobile device, made it possible to identify some photos and videos that she had deleted out of fear. The code on the sheet was instead the telephone number of the person with whom the child interacted. The activities carried out with specific references and investigative crossroads, have made it possible to identify the person responsible in a minor residing in the province of Latina and the search activities carried out by the local SOSC, have allowed the acquisition of all investigative findings.
Particular attention is also paid to the phenomena of revenge porn, with 244 cases treated (of which 34 to the detriment of minors) and 71 people reported, and romantic scams, with 442 cases treated (of which 4 to the detriment of minors) and 103 people denounced.
On the other hand, 15 cases of Red Code have seen the Postal Police actively engaged in combating crimes against the person committed through the network.
Furthermore, the work of the Postal Police on the cyber -terrorism front is still active with investigative monitoring actions of the network and instant messaging channels, for the identification and referral to the Judicial Authorities of those responsible for the dissemination of illicit contents.
And yet the financial cybercrime and for Sardinia we note the "Bolton" operation : at the end of a thorough investigation into the matter of financial abuse carried out by promoting the sale and purchase of financial instruments behind the promise of high profits, the Operations Center for cyber security of Cagliari, with the staff of the Guardia di Finanza, on 16 April 2022 followed up on personal and property precautionary measures ordered by the Judge for preliminary investigations of the Court of Cagliari against 6 seriously suspected people, together with 4 other suspects reported on the loose.
The investigation made it possible to reconstruct the illicit scheme used (the so-called Ponzi scheme) and the network set up by the associates. The suspects, for the crimes of criminal conspiracy aimed at fraud, money laundering and self-laundering, had set up a network of financial companies, also under foreign law, instrumental in procuring customers. During the operation, preventive seizures were carried out, aimed at the confiscation also by equivalent, of assets and financial resources for a total amount of over 4,500,000 euros. Among the assets seized are financial assets, company shares and a hotel facility in the Cagliari hinterland, with an estimated value of around 1,500,000 euros, the acquisition of which by the dominus of the criminal association took place through the involvement of a nominee.
Another case was that of a Romanian who was responsible for the crime of fraud according to the so-called "man in the mail" scheme as well as the crimes of illegal access to a computer system, possession and manufacture of false identity documents. The investigative activity originated from the complaint filed by the owner of a Cagliari company, who had sent a sum of money to a bank account other than that of the supplier. In particular, in the context of commercial correspondence via e-mail between the victim's company and the supplier company, there was the interposition of a third party between the two interlocutors, who, by intercepting the e-mail, changed the IBAN indicated in the duly issued invoice, thus inducing the victim to make the transfer to the scammer's IBAN. The investigative activity made it possible to find that the current account, into which the sum of money was transferred, had been activated by showing an identity card that was found to be counterfeit and by taking a video-selfie. Thanks to the biometric comparison between the image extracted from the video-selfie with those present in the database, the staff of this Operations Center has identified the perpetrator of the fraud who has been reported to the Public Prosecutor's Office of Cagliari.
(Unioneonline/ss)