The Brescia Prosecutor’s Office is considering extending the investigation into Garlasco with anti-terrorism regulations: six years of records to reconstruct contacts and money flows. Former prosecutor Venditti and the “Pavia system” in the crosshairs
An unprecedented request shakes the investigation into the Garlasco crime. The investigative unit of the Carabinieri of Milan asked the Brescia Prosecutor’s Office to apply the anti-terrorism regulations to obtain six years’ telephone and electronic records, and not the two required by ordinary investigations. The objective: to reconstruct a possible network of systemic corruption between officials, investigators and magistrates which, in 2017, would have favored the dismissal of Andrea Sempio, now under investigation again for the murder of Chiara Poggi.
A move deemed “disruptive” by the judicial circles themselves, which points straight to the heart of what investigators now define as the “Pavia System”: a tangle of opaque relationships and alleged favors which, if confirmed, would overwhelm an entire piece of Lombard justice.
The issue of 30 thousand euros and the “pizzino” of the Sempio house
It all starts from a document found during a search: a handwritten note with the words “Sell investigating judge archives × €20-30 thousand”. A clue which, together with the suspicious money flows reported by the Financial Police, has completely reopened the case. The investigators believe that those sums – between 20 and 30 thousand euros – were not intended for trusted lawyers, but for third parties capable of “facilitating” the dismissal of the young clerk from Voghera.
According to initial reconstructions, the payments would have started from the father, Giuseppe Sempio, and addressed to figures close to the judicial circles of Pavia. Hence the explosive hypothesis of corruption in judicial documents, a crime punishable with sentences of up to twelve years in prison.
In the crosshairs today are the former assistant prosecutor of Pavia Mario Venditti, the public prosecutor Pietro Paolo Mazza and several officers of the force, including Giuseppe Spoto, already protagonist of searches and seizures of computer material.
Pinerolo, the center of digital operations
The next key step is set for Monday 3 November in Pinerolo, in the office of Matteo Ghigo, a forensic computer expert. He will be the one to start the extraction and copying of the data contained in the phones and computers seized from Venditti and the Sempios.
The operations will last at least 45 days, followed by another 60 days of in-depth analysis by the GICO of the Financial Police, responsible for tracing communications, chats, and money movements. For the first time, the Garlasco crime is treated with the same procedures as a mafia or terrorism investigation: a leap that confirms the exceptional scope of what is emerging.
The Carabinieri: “We need to act in derogation”
In the document filed in July, the Carabinieri formally ask to “act in derogation of the rules on privacy”, applying the 2017 Italian law which allows the extended conservation of telephone traffic data for anti-terrorism investigations. A request motivated by the urgency of not losing crucial traces: “The time frame of 72 months is necessary to fully reconstruct contacts, communications and relationships between the suspects”, write the military.
Translated: verify who spoke to whom — and when — during the key moments of the investigations, from the archiving of 2017 to the subsequent reopenings of 2020 and 2024.
The “anomalies” and Spoto’s role
The file also contains episodes that investigators define as “anomalous”. Among these, a phone call from February 2017: Giuseppe Spoto, marshal of the judicial police of Pavia, allegedly spoke with Sempio’s first lawyer using the suspect’s phone, which was being intercepted at the time. A conversation lasting just over three minutes, judged “incongruous” and followed by a report with conflicting times. A few hours later, an environmental recording at the Sempio home shows the family discussing the very questions that would have been asked during the interrogation.
A detail that weighs heavily today: according to the Brescia Prosecutor’s Office, it could indicate an illicit flow of information between investigators and suspects.
The “Pavia system” and institutional risk
If the hypotheses are confirmed, the scandal will not remain confined to the province. Investigators speak of an unprecedented crisis of confidence in the judiciary, with the risk of a domino effect on other proceedings handled by the same prosecutor’s office in subsequent years.
For the Brescia Prosecutor’s Office, the priority is to save the rule of law: verify whether the investigations into the murder of Chiara Poggi have been altered by the logic of power, private interests or by a real system of “chain cover-ups”.
While awaiting the first responses from the digital records and reports, one thing appears certain: the Garlasco case is no longer just an unsolved cold case, but a dress rehearsal for the credibility of Italian justice.
