Agcom blocks 191 million spoofing calls in Italy

Italy’s communications authority, Agcom, has blocked approximately 191 million illicit calls using spoofing techniques during the first eight months of the year. Spoofing involves manipulating caller IDs to make fraudulent calls appear as if they are originating from legitimate Italian numbers.

As part of its oversight regarding teleselling and telemarketing numbering, Agcom has issued sanctions totaling nearly 830,000 euros against two companies, Retelit Digital Services and Tekmind. Retelit Digital Services was fined 700,000 euros, while Tekmind received a fine of 122,500 euros.

The authority cited a failure to implement required measures to verify the correctness of numbering used by call centers and a lack of due diligence in managing assigned numbers. Agcom noted that filters implemented on international calls appearing as Italian numbers have significantly reduced the impact of these illegal practices by preventing tens of millions of fraudulent calls from reaching citizens.