ROME – A suspect drone, which is believed to be of Russian origin, has repeatedly flown over the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, on Lago Maggiore, in recent days. 

 The anti-terrorism part of Milan’s Public Prosecutor's Office, which also has jurisdiction over the province of Varese, has opened an investigation.

 Marcello Viola, the prosecutor was investigating the flights of the mysterious foreign drone that have occurred in the last month, with at least five concentrated in a single week. The JRC headquarters on the Lombardy shore of Lake Maggiore are the largest in Europe after those in Brussels and Luxembourg. One of the currently research projects going on in the centre is specifically related to drone security and it was the centre's managers who noticed the remotely piloted aircraft and raised the alarm. 

 In the area, a mere few kilometres from the JRC, there are also some Leonardo Factories, which is a strategic Italian defence company, and further up from that there is also the headquarters of the NATO Rapid Deployable Corps of Solbiate Olona, a multinational command of the army corps with high operational readiness. Thus, the drone has mysteriously appeared in an area saturated with military and defence activity. 

 The public prosecutor’s investigation will be entrusted to the Carabinieri of the ROS. The case could soon be listed with the hypothesis of espionage. The original case, opened immediately after the first report without suspects or the hypothesis of a crime having been committed. The first checks have already begun and a meeting between investigators and investigators was scheduled for Monday, according to police sources. 

 The investigation will be handled by the deputy prosecutor Eugenio Fusco and prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis. The latter is also the head of an investigation started a few months ago against two Italian entrepreneurs accused of ‘corruption of the citizen by the foreigner.’  Gobbis had requested the indictment of the two suspects, aged 34 and 60, who are owners of a real estate company in Brianza and allegedly made themselves available in exchange for payments in cryptocurrency for an alleged espionage activity on behalf of Russian intelligence, according to judicial sources. At this time, there are no connections between the two cases, however, relevant checks will be made in this direction. 

 Ispra, where the drone was sighted, is a town of just 5 thousand inhabitants and is home to the JRC, one of the most closely monitored structures in Northern Italy, which has an active no-fly zone and carries out research projects in numerous fields, including nuclear safety, energy efficiency, climate change, space and transport. 

 There are no eyewitnesses to the drone flights but security sources cited by Ansa report that it is unlikely that the aircraft, which according to the detection system that intercepted it was made in Russia, could have travelled all the way from Russia to Italy, as the drone model is not one of those that can last for many kilometres. It would therefore have taken off from a base not far from the area it then flew over and would have been piloted from there. Thus, the prosecutor is in the process of acquiring more information, before ordering further investigations into the case.

 On the topic mysterious aircraft, Salvatore De Meo, member of the Security and Defence Committee of the European Parliament and president of the EU delegation for relations with NATO had stated that ‘Forza Italia will present a question to the European Commission to shed full light on the affair.’ 

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