Italian Police Arrests Alleged Anonymous Members

The Italian police with assistance from the Swiss authorities has arrested three individuals suspected to be Anonymous members yesterday.

One of them, a 26 year-old Italian named Luca Franceschi who allegedly used the online alias of Frey is believed to be the head of the Italian Anonymous chapter. He was arrested at his residence in Ticino, the sourthernmost canton in Switzerland which borders Italy.

Italian police confirmed that 32 raids were carried out in connection with an operation dubbed "Secure Italy."

The investigation started back in January after Anonymous attacked many Italian companies and organizations, including Post, Unicredit, Eni, Finmeccanica, the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, Palazzo Chigi and others.

Fifteen suspects were questioned following the raids, including five minors, and three of them were arrested. Franceschi is said to have coordinated the attacks from his home computer.

According to the authorities, the Spanish branch of Anonymous assisted the Italian one in carrying out the attacks and the Italian side returned the favor.

At the beginning of last month the Spanish police announced the dismantling of a local Anonymous cell and the arrest of its leaders.

Three suspects were taken into custody in Barcelona, Valencia and Almeria. Investigators claimed they had access to botnets.

Anonymous officially uses a program called LOIC to carry out the denial of service attacks. The use of LOIC is voluntary within the group and the program only sends repeated HTTP requests.

However, security experts have long argued that the group's attacks are too efficient to be the result of just a few hundred people using LOIC. They concluded that some Anonymous members must have access to botnets.

The hacktivist collective claims it has no leaders, however, the older and most active members are known to have more influence inside the group and can guide its actions.