MILAN: Italian police have placed four people under house arrest, including Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, son of the late billionaire founder of Luxottica, as part of a probe into alleged illegal access to state databases, a source said on Saturday.

A lawyer for Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio said he was “eagerly awaiting the completion of preliminary investigations to be able to prove he has nothing to do with the events in question and that charges laid against him have no basis”. “He seems to be rather a victim given initial allegations and the negative outcome of the search conducted,” lawyer Maria Emanuela Mascalchi said in a statement.

The alleged database access was carried out by a private intelligence business run by a former policeman, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio is the son of Leonardo Del Vecchio, who founded Ray Ban-owner Luxottica. He allegedly tasked the intelligence agency with gathering information, as his father’s heirs are in disagreement over the inheritance, the person said.

The illegal access to confidential data, which was allegedly sold to customers or used to blackmail businessmen and politicians, went back to at least 2019 and continued up to March this year, a court document showed.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2024