Procurement piloted for the Milan-Cortina Olympics, Gdf searches at the Foundation’s headquarters

Searches by the Financial Police at the headquarters of the Milan Cortina Foundation: there is an investigation that hypothesizes corruption in the awarding of contracts for IT security

MILAN – First investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office regarding the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. Since this morning, searches have been underway at the headquarters of the Foundation, and of supplier companies and natural persons. The blitz by the men of the Economic-Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Milan is focused on the search for documentation, also through IT inspections. The hypothesis is of corruption and bid rigging in the awarding of “technological services” for the Winter Olympics. Alongside the searches some Foundation employees were interviewed as people informed of the facts. No current manager and/or employee of the Foundation is currently under investigation, specifies the Prosecutor’s Office, which is also shining a light on the hiring of personnel.

CYBER SECURITY AT THE CENTER OF THE INVESTIGATION

The investigations concern the awarding of the digital ecosystem and the security of the IT infrastructures of the Milano Cortina 2026 Foundation following a corrupt agreement between three subjects, an entrepreneur and two former top managers of the Foundation (including, writes ‘Repubblica’, the former CEO of the Vincenzo Novari Foundation) registered in the register of suspects. The special technological fraud units of the Guardia di Finanza in the provinces of Milan, Rome, Parma and Terni, provinces in which investigations are underway, are collaborating in the investigations.

UN VALIDATION PROCEDURES SUPPLIERS AND RECRUITMENTS

The ongoing checks concern not only the procedures adopted for the choice of suppliers and technological sponsors. But also the methods of hiring employees at the Foundation, hires for which “the acquisition of the relevant deeds and documents has been arranged”.

The investigations conducted by the deputy Tiziana Siciliano and the prosecutors Francesco Cajani and Alessandro Gobbis contest the private nature of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games. The Foundation “although it qualifies – by virtue of a primary law – as a non-profit organization operating under private law”, in reality it has “a substantially public nature, pursuing an aim of general interest, with members, resources and guarantees of the State and local authorities (Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Lombardy and Veneto Regions, Municipalities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Provinces of Trento and Bolzano, Coni and Cip)”.