Italy concludes first stage of probe into former TIM employees over alleged phone scams

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors said on Thursday they had wrapped up their initial investigation of 12 people from Telecom Italia (TIM) and two content providers over alleged fraud through the unauthorised activation of services to customers.

The act of closing a probe is the final step before a prosecutor's office can request the trial of those under investigation.

According to the statement from Milan prosecutors, a user only needed to visit a web page or consult an app on their mobile phone to become signed up to services that charge a weekly or monthly fee.

TIM, which is not under investigation, had no comment.

Prosecutors had seized around 250 million euros ($271 million) from the company in February 2024, but two months later a court in Milan returned that sum to TIM.

The court had said there was no risk that the company, given its cash flow, would be unable to pay the money that might eventually be recognised as the profit from the fraud allegedly committed by its former employees.

Milan prosecutors said in their statement they have now recalculated the profits from this system at over 102 million euros for TIM, and 15 million euros for the two content providers, for the years 2017 to 2020.

($1 = 0.9211 euros)

(Reporting by Emilio Parodi and Elvira Pollina, editing by Keith Weir)