Confidential Affairs Division (Kingdom of Italy)
Confidential Affairs Division (Italian: Divisione degli Affari Riservati, D.AA.RR. or, more commonly, D.A.R.) is the central office of the Intelligence and Security Organization of the Royal Carabinieri, stemming from the reorganization of the 1990s of the internal security sector. As central body of the Intelligence and Security Organization, the Confidential Affairs Division deals with domestic intelligence (also including offensive and proactive operations) and political police functions, without a territorial scope. Differently from the CC.RR. Divisions directly under the General Command, the D.AA.RR. is a pure intelligence-oriented internal security organisation, officially restricted to dealing with information, while the directly-subordinatd Divisions are overt security apparatus and have operational and judicial police roles. The fundamental characteristic of the D.A.R. 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.
Personnel assigned to the Division do not retain the capacity of Judicial Police Agent or Judicial Police Officer.
Division Commander
The leadership of the Confidential Affairs Division is usually given to a trusted senior CC.RR. . While other Divisional heads may report to other officials outside the Royal Carabinieri, the head of the Division reports only to the Commandant-General of the Royal Carabinieri and to the Duce; information acquired by the Division is filtered throught Division VII - Political Police and then shared with other security services. The Division Commander is in charge of the whole Intelligence and Security Organization.
The O.I.S. Commander is either a Division General of the Royal Carabinieri or a Division Admiral of the Coast Guard. The current Head of Division is Royal Carabinieri Division General Leonardo Nuvolone.
Role
It is incumbent upon the Division Commander to guide, coordinate and supervise intelligence and counter-intelligence activities within the scope of the Carabinieri. The Commander administers the Division's activities, maintains information links with regional, provincial and local intelligence units and with other bodies in the intelligence community. Furthermore, the Division Commander prepares general rules of action, promotes periodic meetings with members of intelligence units and with members of other intelligence agencies, proposes training to the Commandant-General. He analyses and gives an opinion on the security plans of the barracks, grants rights and assigns responsibilities within his competence, authorises the dissemination of knowledge and/or intelligence documents, carries out permanent doctrinal and normative action on intelligence activities, is constantly aware of the activities and productivity of intelligence agencies, adopting the necessary measures to improve their performance, in order to remain updated on the national situation in the different fields, producing knowledge and aiming to advise the General Command.
Division Deputy Commander
The Division Deputy Commander is the officer tasked with day-to-day managing and routine operations of the Division, while important affairs are directly overseen by the Divisional Head. Usually, the Division Deputy Commander is an official with extensive intelligence background and almost always he comes from the rans of Division II - Confidential Affairs.
The Deputy Commander is either a Brigade General of the Royal Carabinieri (if the Commander comes from the Coast Guard) or a Rear-Admiral of the Coast Guard (if the Commander comes from the Royal Carabinieri). The current Deputy Divisional Head is Brigade 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.
The Intelligence and Security Organization has a centralized structure consisting of a Central Logistics Support Group, a Central Office. Directly dependent on the O.I.S. commander, the Intelligence and Security Organization operates the Central Office, the S.I.M. Military Police Group and the Security Group.
- General Staff: the General Staff deals mainly with support and coordination measures.
- Security Department;
- Analysis Service;
- Organised Crime Service;
- Operational Anticipation Service;
- Counterterrorism Information Service;
- Economic and Social Service;
- 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 Special Affairs;
- Central political database.
- Liaision Officer with the Military Police Command (Ufficiale di Collegamento con il Comando Polizia Militare U.CO.POL.): a CC.RR. officer from the Military Police Command;
- Liaision Officer with the Royal Guard of Finance (Ufficiale di Collegamento con il Servizio Informazioni della Reale Guardia di Finanza, U.CO.S.I.GU.F.): a RGdF officer from the General Command;
- Liaision Officer with the M.V.S.N. (Ufficiale di Collegamento con la Milizia, U.CO.MIL.): a M.V.S.N. officer in charge for all M.V.S.N. bodies and branches.
General Staff
The General Staff deals mainly with support and coordination measures. It consists of four Sections and one Central Logistics Group:
- Central Logistics Support Group;
- Central Operational Support Group (Gruppo di Supporto Operativo Centrale, G.S.O.C.).
- 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.
Central Logistics Support Group
Commanded by a senior officer of the Italian police military corps, in active service situation, assists the Head of the Intelligence and Security Organization in matters of personnel, specific material, informative support, doctrine of the Organization and coordination and control of dissemination.
- Technical Investigations Department (Reparto Investigazioni Tecniche, R.I.T.);
- Linguistic Analysis Department (Reparto Analisi Linguistiche, R.A.L.).
Central Operational Support Group
Commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel, the Central Operational Support Group materializes the support required by the different Departments of the Organisation, by order of the O.I.S. commander, and that require a greater qualification in the use of technical means or operating procedures. It is in charge of operational actions, monitoring, surveillance, etc.
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.
Security Department
The Security Department (Reparto Sicurezza, RE.S.) preserves the operational integrity of the Royal Carabinieri by shielding its operations, personnel, systems, facilities and information from foreign intelligence entities, and the intelligence efforts of terrorist organizations, drug trafficking elements and other organized crime groups, adversaries, and insider threats. RE.S. supports the identification, understanding, neutralization, and exploitation of the operations of foreign intelligence entities and of non-state actors attempting to attain critical information about Royal Carabinieri operations, capabilities, plans, and personnel.
Analysis Service
The Analysis Service (Servizio Analisi, R.AN.) has the exclusive mission of research, collection, exploitation, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence obtained by regular gendarmerie forces or by the O.I.S. itself.
The Analysis Department is directly subordinate to the Division Commander aincludes three Sections:
- General Analysis Department (Reparto Analisi Generale, R.A.G.): it is the central hub and provides analytical support to all articulations and in turn includes:
- Counterterrorism Section: it supports Sections VIII and X;
- Reports and Requirements Section;
- Strategic assessment Section;
- Publications Section;
- Economic and Social Deparment (Reparto Economico e Sociale, R.E.S.): it deals with analysis and general information collection in the economic and social field, aiming to integrate collected pieces of information in a coherent picture. In turn it includes
- Economic and Diversified Threat Section, in charge of political-economic counterintelligence, unlawful financial flows and economic security;
- Cyber threat Section: support to O.V.R.A. Eighth Central Directorate;
- General Economic and social information Section
- Management Department (Reparto Gestione, Re.G.), which collects intelligence from open sources and other reports transmitted by non-intelligence units
- Analysis and Dissemination Department (Reparto Analisi e Disseminazione, R.A.D.), which is charged to exploit, analyse, and disseminate intelligence gathered from the other Departments and by the Collection Section.
Organised Crime Service
The Organised Crime Service (Servizio Crimine Organizzato, CRIM.OR.) 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. The Service consists of five Departments:
- Organised crime Department (Reparto Anti-Crimine Organizzato, R.A.C.O.);
- Anti-Weapons trafficking Department (Reparto per il Contrasto al Traffico d'Armi, RE.CO.T.A.);
- Anti-Mafia and Fugitives Department (Reparto Antimafia e Catturandi, R.A.M.C.);
- Anti-Trafficking and Anti-Smuggling Department (Reparto per il Contrasto al Narcotraffico e al Contrabbando, RE.CO.NA.C.): staffed by delegates of the Royal Guard of Finance;
- Frauds and Money Laundering Department (Reparto per il Contrasto alle Frodi e al Riciclaggio, RE.CO.FRO.R.): staffed by delegates of the Royal Guard of Finance.
Operational Anticipation Service
The Operational Anticipation Department (Servizio Anticipazione Operativa, S.ANT.OP.) is the public order intelligence department of the O.I.S. and the de facto Carabinieri operational arm for meddling and partecipation in security activities.
The S.ANT.OP. proposes the doctrine relating to intelligence missions within the Royal Carabinieri, treats internal and external information allowing the alert of the authorities, as well as the monitoring of sensitive situations in the short term, participates research, collection, analysis and dissemination of defence, public order and national security information necessary for the performance of the missions of the militarised police corps, ensures the processing of operational intelligence of public, leads or participates, with the other bodies, in inter-ministerial crisis management and follows and coordinates the action of the units in its area of responsibility.
This Service has established itself as a real intelligence structure: from its construction into intelligence developed to its ascent to allow the Commandant-General of the Carabinieri, or even the Director General of Public Security, to make a decision. They can then measure the reality on the ground, commit resources, order operations and inform government authorities.
The Operational Anticipation Service consists of two Departments:
- Operational Intelligence Department (Reparto Informazioni Operative, R.I.O.): it centralizes information in real time
- Analysis and Operations Department (Reparto Analisi e Operazioni, R.A.O.): it studies in detail each major topic likely to have repercussions in matters of public order or general security.
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 Service groups three Departments:
- Internal activity Department (Reparto Attività Interna, R.A.I.): it 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 anarchist and leftist clandestine opposition;
- Office IV - Emergent Threats: fights anarchist organisations of non-terrorist character;
- Destablization Department (Reparto Destabilizzazione, RE.DE.): 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;
- Islamist Activity Department (Reparto Attività Islamista, ISLAMOREP): 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).
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);
- Counter-espionage Department (Reparto Controspionaggio, RE.CO.S.)
- Anti-immigration and Maritime Frontier Security Department (Reparto per la Lotta all'Immigrazione e la Sicurezza delle Frontiere Marittime, RE.L.I.S.FRO.M.): staffed by delegates of the Coast Guard;
Anti-immigration and Maritime Frontier Security Department
The Anti-immigration and Maritime Frontier Security Department (Reparto per la Lotta all'Immigrazione e la Sicurezza delle Frontiere Marittime, RE.L.I.S.FRO.M.) is the maritime border security unit of the O.I.S.. The maritime border security includes the maritime approaches to Italy and the Italian Empire and broad expanses of the exclusive economic zone.
RE.L.I.S.FRO.M. is staffed by delegates of the Coast Guard and liasies with the Italian National Royal Navy.
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 for Special Affairs carries out covert operations and not official police-related operations and proceeds to illegal arrests and break-ins.
Training and Recycling Centre
Commanded by a Colonel, it attends to the needs of continuous training, training and recycling of the personnel, complementing the general instruction already received in the selection and qualification process, directing it to the specific activity to be developed, as well as as to the relationship with the teaching centers of the Corps and other similar services.
Security Group
The Security Group deals with internal security, passing regular reports on the political situation in police military corps barracks and units, identifying especially those officers known for their political dissention towards the Fascist Regime, opposition circles within the units, signs of discontent, etc. A secondary objective is counter-espionage: to prevent any foreign nation or political group hostile to Italy from knowing details about the intentions and real military force of the Nation. The Security Group conducts proactive counterintelligence activities to detect, identify, assess, and counter, neutralize or exploit foreign intelligence and insider threats. The Group is divided into:
- Section I - Protection: the Section conducts counterintelligence, counterterrorist and counterespionage investigations and operations abroad and at home.
- Section II - Operations Security: the section conducts external operations security in support of police forces, to advise and assist commanders on threat vulnerabilities.
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 General Command of the Royal Carabinieri, although there are some GRdF and Coast Guard personnel (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 Confidential Affairs Division provides other police organs (other branches of the Royal Carabinieri, Royal Guard of Finance, Coast Guard, 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 Royal Carabinieri, and the CC.RR. General Staff is the point of arrival of all sensistive information.
Confidential Affairs Division 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.
Information sharing with the judicial system
Royal Carabinieri 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 Confidential Affairs Division 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.