Confidential Affairs Division (Kingdom of Italy)
Division II - Confidential Affairs (Italian: Divisione II - Affari Riservati, D.AA.RR. or, more commonly, D.A.R.) is a central office of the Directorate-General of Public Security, stemming from the reorganization of the 1990s of the internal security sector. This Division deals with domestic intelligence (also including offensive and proactive operations) and political police functions, without a territorial scope. Differently from Political Police Division, the D.AA.RR. is a pure intelligence-oriented internal organisation, officially restricted to dealing with information, while Division VII is an overt security apparatus and has operational and police roles (with territorialised functions). The fundamental characteristic of Division II is the centralization, both of the information and of the investigations and their management throughout the national territory. The D.AA.RR. ensures the indispensable contribution of a general and preventive intelligence, capable of integrating the investigative activities, and conducted by police forces and specialized structures such as the U.C.S.
It is to note that personnel assigned to Division II from the remaining Administration of P.S. do not retain the capacity of Judicial Police Agent or Judicial Police Officer.
Divisional Head
The leadership of the Confidential Affairs Division is usually given to a trusted senior police official, who is promoted to the Prefect rank for the specific purpose. While other Divisional heads may report to other officials outside the Administration of Public Security, the head of Division II reports only to the Chief of Police, the Minister of Interior and to the Duce; information acquired by the Division is filtered throught Division VII - Political Police and then shared with other security services.
The current Head of Division is Prefect, 1st Class Leonardo Nuvolone.
Deputy Divisional Head
The Deputy Divisional Head of Division II - Confidential Affairs is the official tasked with day-to-day managing and routine operations of the Division, while important affairs are directly overseen by the Divisional Head. Usually, the Deputy Divisional Head is an official with extensive intelligence background and almost always he comes from the rans of Division II - Confidential Affairs.
The current Deputy Divisional Head is Inspector General Filippo Aragonesi.
Organisation
The D.A.R. organisation is based on functional criteria and includes fourteen Sections, three multi-sectional Services, three Central Offices and a Central Political Database (It: Casellario Politico Centrale, C.P.C.). Clandestine provincial teams are directly employed by the Confidential Affairs Division, which also uses the "Foreigners Surveillance Offices" framed within Questure. Each Section handles its own informers, informants and sources.
- General Service: while such "Service" is directed by a senior official who has the same rank of the Section heads, he is kept distinct and retain functional authority over them. The Service deals mainly with support and coordination measures.
- Section I: General affairs;
- Section II: Peripheral teams co-ordination, urgent and confidential information service, complaints against government and Party important persons;
- Section III: Informers accountancy and general analysis;
- Section IV: Technical-logistical support and tapping support;
- Organised Crime Service: while such "Service" is directed by a senior official who has the same rank of the Section heads, he is kept distinct and retain functional authority over them. The Service deals mainly with the information management and sharing with Division VI - Criminal Police against organised crime, and related issues and phoenomena.
- Section V: Organised crime, money laundering;
- Section VI: Smuggling, Drug trafficking, Weapons trafficking;
- Section VII: Economic and Diversified Threat, in charge of political-economic counterintelligence, unlawful financial flows and economic security;
- Counterterrorism Information Service: while such "Service" is directed by a senior official who has the same rank of the Section heads, he is kept distinct and retain functional authority over them. The Service deals mainly with the information management and sharing with Division VII - Political Police against political terrorism, subversion and dissidents.
- Section VIII: Internal activity;
- Section IX: Destablization;
- Section X: Islamism;
- Section XI - Joint analysis;
- Section XII: Cyber threat, and support to O.V.R.A. Eighth Central Directorate;
- Section XIII: Economic and social information
- Section XIV: Urban security
- Central Office for Internal Security: general coordination, Head's personal secretariat, search for fugitives, covert operations, direct actions and divisional internal security;
- Central Office for Adminstration;
- Central Office for Special Affairs;
- Central political database.
General Service
The General Service is directed by a senior official who has the same rank of the Section heads, but he is kept distinct and retains functional authority over them. The General Service deals mainly with support and coordination measures.
Section I - General Affairs
Section I - General Affairs (Sezione I - Affari Generali) deals with public security preventive measures, concentration camps, confinement colonies and internal surveillance. In particular, the task of Section I - General Affairs is to monitor the other agents, check their loyalty, their expenses for undercover operations, but they can be used, since they are the trustee of the Divisional Head, for sensitive field missions. Section I - General Affairs is subdivided into seven Offices:
- Office I - General Affairs counter-terrorism public alerts;
- Office II - Preventive measures and security deportations: provide support to Quaestor's orders;
- Office III - Concentration Camps;
- Office IV - Confinement Colonies;
- Office V - People subject to administrative detention: provide support to the Confinement Commission;
- Office VI - Foreign internees;
- Office VII - Inspections.
Section II - Peripheral teams
The chief of Section II is among the most important men within the Division, because he manages all information notes and sends them to the relevant Section or Office; moreover, when he receives information about the scandals of high-level personalities, although news of crime, these are forwarded in the form of confidential note, through the Chief of Police, to the Minister of the Interior which assesses whether or not to proceed. For news of crime of another type, the note is forwarded to the Political Police Division, which in turn forwards the note to the Political Office responsible for the area and this Office signs the judicial report without giving act of the memo information.
Section II is subdivided into four Offices, each in charge for a portion of Italy: Rome and Latium, Northern Italy, Central Italy (including Sardinia) and Southern Italy (including Sicily and Malta). These Offices directly manage their own informants networks, in addition to providing administrative support to the individual teams.
The clandestine peripheral facilities of the Division are usually arranged in the central boroughs, hidden among many other commercial activities and within the walls of anonymous buildings, which usually arise near important government buildings. They have offices or apartments specifically chosen to be easily accessible, often protected by a doorkeeper who knows everything and pretends nothing. Usually, peripheral team hide behind the banner of fictitious insurance agencies or non-existent think tanks, cultural associations, institutions of cooperation or import-export companies. On the bell is written the initials of one of the many cover companies.
During the operational activities, agents of the peripheral teams do not wear uniforms, they do not have official vehicles and do not carry weapons; they just try to look inconspicuous, while seeming mere employees who every day go to the office, and in the same time to look deeply where they have to look.
Organised Crime Service
The Organised Crime Service deals mainly with the information flowing to the Criminal Police Division and to the Central Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate through Division VII - Political Police. The Service also maintains, at the peripheral teams in the most impregnated places of mafia (Sicily, Calabria and Campania), specialised centers able to oppose organised crime alongside judicial police. While the Organised Crime Service is directed by a senior official who has the same rank of the Section heads, he is kept distinct and retain functional authority over them:
- Section V: Organised crime, money laundering;
- Section VI: Smuggling, Drug trafficking, Weapons trafficking.
Counterterrorism Information Service
The Counterterrorism Information Service (Servizio Informazioni Antiterrorismo, S.I.A.) deals mainly with the information management and sharing with Division VII - Political Police against political terrorism, subversion and dissidents. The Antiterrorism Information Service is directed by a senior official who has the same rank of the Section heads, but he is kept distinct and retains functional authority over them. Usually, the Service Director is the head of Section XI - Joint analysis. The Service groups four Sections and 14 Offices:
- Section VIII - Internal activity: focuses on threats having origins within Italian borders. It consists of four Offices:
- Office I - Internal activities: deals with internal terrorist and subversive activity analysis;
- Office II - Empire: deals with terrorism within the Italian Empire;
- Office III - Leftists: focuses on non-terrorist leftist clandestine opposition;
- Office IV - Anarchism: fights anarchist organisations of non-terrorist character;
- Section IX - Destablization: focuses on threats having their origins in the Western and liberal-democratic powers. It consists of four Offices:
- Office I - Liberal activity: deals with Jewish, zionist, and democratic opposition activities;
- Office II - Defence: deals with aversive organisations and analysis of non-terrorist separatist activities;
- Office III - International and transnatonal terrorism;
- Office IV - NGOs: keeps an eye over foreign NGOs;
- Section X - Islamism: focuses on islamist and/or jihadist activities and organizations. It consists of:
- Office I - Organizations: monitors non-terrorist clandestine islamist and jihadist organisations in Italy and in the Italian Empire;
- Office II - Analysis: keeps track of islamist activities;
- Office III - Terrorism: fights Islamist terrorism, working in conjunction with both Section VI (trafficking) and Section VII (economic security).
- Section XI - Joint analysis: this Section is the central hub and provides analytical support to all Sections and includes four Offices:
- Office I - Counterterrorism: it supports Sections VIII and X;
- Office II - Reports and Requirements
- Office III - Strategic assessment;
- Office IV - Publications.
Central Office for Internal Security
The Central Office for Internal Security (Ufficio Centrale per la Sicurezza Interna, U.C.S.I.) is the "right hand" of the Confidential Affairs Division and it is believed to be employed in order to carry out surveillance over influential Party and State leaders and to act as judicial police, referring to the Speical Court for State Security, being the political counterpart of the Central Operational Section/R.O.S. of the Criminal Police. It answers only to the Head of Division and it is formed by personnel selected by the Head himself. Within the office the heart od activity is the Organised Crime Centre, which is subdivided into three sectors: international and domestic terrorism, and mafias. The Central Office for Internal Security of Division II - Confidential Affairs consists of:
- Central administrative office:
- Protective custody;
- Press office;
- P.N.F. matters;
- Operational Support Centre:
- 1st Listening Central;
- 2nd Listening Central;
- Organised Crime Centre:
- 1st Sector (international terrorism);
- 2nd Sector (domestic terrorism and disoloyalty to Duce Debalti);
- 3rd Sector (contrast of national mafias);
- Source Handling Team;
- Unit A1 (Secretariat);
- Unit A2 (Direct and violent actions);
- Unit A3 (Divisional coordination);
- Unit A4 (Clandestine surveillance);
Central Office for Special Affairs
The Central Office for Special Affairs (Ufficio Centrale per gli Affari Speciali, U.C.A.S.) has the task of collaborating with the O.V.R.A., as well as with the organs of the military police, exercising exclusively, or with functions of superintendency and direction towards another body in charge, the executive tasks in matters of external defense and protection of internal security of the State, linked to the activities of the intelligence organizations.
In carrying out its task, the Central Office can also make use of other police offices (especially of Division VII - Political Police), as well as individual agents and public security officers and judicial police, directing and coordinating their activities in the specific field. It is to note that the Anti-Terorism Section of the Political Police Division carries out similar activities; the difference lies in the fact that the Central Office of Security Police carries out covert operations and not official police-related operations and proceeds to illegal arrests and break-ins.
Foreign people
The collection of information and control over the people of subversive and potentially dangerous to public order and fascist system, has resulted in the activities of prevention and punishment of crimes against state security to the collection of thousands of named dossiers. In particular, the files labelled with the letter O concern foreign citizens considered suspicious.
Relationship with other actors of the security and judicial system
The Confidential Affairs Division is the intelligence arm of the Directorate General of Public Security, but is mostly operated by C.P.R. and civilian personnel, although there are some Carabinieri (mainly with liaision tasks). This determines a peculiar relationship with other actors and stakeholders of the Italian security/judicial system.
There is a threefold logic underlying domestic intelligence: a classic logic of intelligence turned toward the interior of the national space (addressed to by the O.V.R.A. Internal Situation Division of the First Central Directorate); a police logic (i.e. intelligence activities being part of the policeman’s work) and a judicial logic. Because hostile acts detected by the intelligence service are likely to be qualified as crimes and offences, they are normally intended to be transmitted to justice. In particular, domestic intelligence consists of collecting, analyzing, and producing intelligence related to the security of the state.
These missions include uncovering and countering terrorism, espionage, sabotage, subversion, political, ethnic and religious dissent and extremism, organised crime, narcotics production and trafficking, money counterfeiting and laundering, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, illegal arms dealing, arms, human, contraband and other smuggling, unauthorised immigration, electronic and cyber attacks, hacking and data theft, and dissemination of pornography, etc. Missions other than counterrorism (shared by all Italian domestic intelligence bodies) are primarily assigned to one or another intelligence service. In order to deal with terrorism, Italy has a nuanced, unified, and intelligent counterterrorism response. In this response, police forces and intelligence services play a crucial role in domestic intelligence, the security of populations, and threat prevention.
The role of law enforcement in intelligence encompasses criminal intelligence, counter intelligence, and countering terrorism. With the development of the terrorist threat, police forces play fully their role in domestic intelligence. In particular, the mission of law enforcement intelligence is to prevent or mitigate crimes, threats and attacks from reaching fruition. This mission requires certain knowledge to be available to law enforcement — such as information on the criminal actors along with their motives, methods and targets. Owing to the proximity of law enforcement and local populations, law enforcement can have broad access to a large network of human intelligence.
Relationship with police bodies
Ordinarily, the Division provides other police organs (other Divisions of the Directorate-General, Royal Carabinieri, Royal Guard of Finance, Coast Guard, Royal Police Corps, Corps of Penitentiary Police) in a timely and effective manner. After a first analysis, all the information of interest is addressed to the destination of competence, often in copy. Division VII - Political Police, in particular, is the point of entry and of arrival for all information destined to leave the Public Security Administration, and Division I - General Affairs is the point of arrival of all sensistive information.
Division II - Confidential Affairs may request the Provincial Public Security Authorities to transmit residence permits and may request the omission, suspension and revocation of the expulsion order for information purposes, as is also the case for reasons of judicial investigation.
Relationship with the Intelligence and Security Organization
While the Political Police Division officially is the general hub for Public Security-related intelligence, the Confidential Affairs Division may cooperate with the Intelligence and Security Organization, but as a separate body. This has led to a general Carabinieri dominance within the O.I.S., although this trend has not been officially sanctioned. In police-related work, however, there is a deal of mutual cooperation, generally oriented against the O.V.R.A.
Information sharing with the judicial system
Agents assigned to the Confidential Affairs Division are, for the most part, Agents or Officers of Judicial Police and, as such, legally bound to keep informed the judicial bodies of any hypotesis of crime. In practice, any information collected in the periphery, even if inherent an hypothesis of crime (and therefore, theoretically to bring to immediate knowledge of the judiciary), arrives at the top of the Division, which carries out the "political evaluation", and then sends the report to the Minister or, after having "transformed" it into a normal police report, to provide it to Division VII - Political Police.
Division VII - Political Police, eventually, sends the report to its own peripheral organs and then they send to investigative bodies, which however are unaware of the real origin. De facto, it is the Head of Division who decides what to say to the Minister and what to bring to the attention of the investigating bodies and therefore the appointment of the holder of this position is crucial to the political dominance.
Relationship with the O.V.R.A.
With respect to O.V.R.A. the attitude of Division II - Confidential Affairs is more complex. On one hand, as part of the Intelligence Community of the Kingdom of Italy, the Division is subordinate to the Director General of O.V.R.A. (in his position as Director General of National Security), on the other hand the rivalry between the Ministry and the Party, although blurred and covered, makes full and mutual cooperation difficult.