Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, born in 1943. According to Forbes he is the seventh richest man in Italywith an estimated net worth of 8.2 billion dollars. Today an investigation published by The Press And IrpiMedia and signed by Raffaele Angius And Gianluca Paolucci reveals that he is also part of the group of Italian citizens who were spied on with Graphite, the spyware developed by Paragon Solutions. The same one that also infected the phones of Francesco Cancellato, director of Fanpage.it, and Ciro Pellegrino, area head of the Naples editorial team.
If confirmed, the name of Caltagirone would be the first out of the group of activists and journalists which in recent months have been reached by notifications from WhatsApp and Apple in which the presence of Graphite was detected. We remember it. Graphite is not just malware. It is sophisticated software, capable of activating a zero-click attack and absorb the data of the smartphone on which it arrives.
You are added to a WhatsApp group. A pdf is sent to the group. Once the contact receives the PDF the file is activated. You don’t even need to open it. Paragon Solutions, an Israeli company, does not supply Graphite to anyone. According to the rules of its contracts this software can be used only for specific targets such as terrorists. In June 2025, after the Cancellato case, Paragon announced that it had terminated its contract with the Italian government.
The European Union funded Paragon: “Public funds for a company that spies on citizens”
What we know about the Caltagirone case
According to what was reported by Stampa and IrpiMedia, the Caltagirone case has begun December 2024. The same dynamic here too. Caltagirone was added to a WhatsApp group with other contacts, a pdf file was sent and then the chat disappeared. The notification arrived a month later. After the notification, the smartphone would be returned to factory settings. At the moment, explains La Stampa, the Caltagirone staff “did not respond to requests for clarification”.
Interesting calendar. According to the source who spread the news, the WhatsApp notification arrived on the same day as it also reached Francesco Cancellato and the two founders of the Mediterranean NGO, Luca Casarini And Joseph Hunting. They too are involved in the Paragon case.
The affairs of Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone
The business network of Caltagirone is quite extensive. The main holding company is Caltagirone SpA.a company listed on the stock exchange which on its website declares a turnover in 2024 of 2.14 billion euros, with a profit of 257.5 million euros. It starts from the construction sector but also extends to publishing and finance. The company linked to Caltagirone Spa which deals with construction is Cementir Holding which presents itself as “the largest producer and exporter of white cement in the world”.
In addition to construction activity, the holding also deals with publishing: the group includes Messaggero, Il Mattino, Il Gazzettino di Venezia and Leggo. Not only that. In recent months the name of Caltagirone has often returned to the national news for an ofinancial transaction involving Monte dei Paschi di Siena and Mediobanca. The Caltagirone group owns the 10% of Monte dei Paschi di Siena. At the end of September it asked the ECB for authorization to rise above this altitude.
