Investigative Journalism and the Iuventa Case

The Intercept — Chloe Haralambous, Lorenzo D'Agostino and Zach Campbell
The most comprehensive journalistic investigation into the case came from The Intercept, across three pieces spanning 2018 to 2022.

A Migrant Boat Disaster, a Refugee's Tale, and the EU's Deadly Politics (2018)

Italy's Anti-Mafia Directorate and the "Dirty Campaign" to Criminalize Migration (2021)
Based on leaked DNAA documents, this piece revealed how Italy's anti-Mafia directorate coordinated a strategy — alongside Italian and European officials — to use anti-Mafia powers against NGO rescue workers, resulting in 15 separate legal proceedings between 2017 and 2019.

Hacked Phones, Undercover Cops, and Conspiracy Theories (2022)
Based on the leaked Iuventa-Trapani files, this piece documented the full surveillance apparatus deployed against the rescue sector — bugged ships, wiretapped lawyers and journalists, spyware, and an undercover agent — and showed how much of the investigation had nothing to do with the alleged offences at all.

Andrea Palladino — Domani, Famiglia Cristiana, L'Espresso
Andrea Palladino, Italian investigative journalist with a focus on organised crime and the far right, reported on the case across multiple publications.

Caos Mediterraneo: le manovre occulte di Defend Europe sull'indagine Iuventa (Famiglia Cristiana, August 2017)
In one of the earliest investigations into the case – published in the Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana (just days after the Iuventa's seizure – Palladino traced a direct link between the IMI Security agents who triggered the Trapani investigation and Gian Marco Concas, a former Italian Navy officer and spokesperson for the far-right Identitarian Movement, who was simultaneously serving as "technical director" of the C-Star — the vessel the European far right had deployed to obstruct NGO rescue operations off Libya. The investigation showed that the same private security network supplying personnel to NGO ships was directly connected, through shared online networks of military contractors, to the anti-migrant operation patrolling the same waters.
For this reporting, Palladino received threats from neo-fascist groups — prompting a statement of solidarity from the Italian press union FNSI and his publisher. (Solidarity statement after threats to Palladino (Articolo21, 2017))

In Domani (April 2021), Palladino published detailed reporting on the political connections of the IMI security agents: their contacts with Salvini's office, the intercepted phone calls in which they discussed expected rewards, and Gallo's approach to Giorgia Meloni.

Il Fatto Quotidiano — Massari
Il Fatto Quotidiano published in January 2019 Gallo's own admissions about the limits of his testimony — including his statement that he had never directly witnessed collaboration between NGOs and traffickers, and the details of his and Ballestra's contacts with Salvini's the far right party Lega.

Die Zeit — Bartholomäus von Laffert
In a 2019 interview with Zeit Online, von Laffert spoke with Pietro Gallo, one of the prosecution's main witnesses. Gallo retracted the core of his testimony: "I never witnessed the NGOs collaborating with the traffickers. That was always just a hunch. We put two and two together." He also said: "I feel co-responsible for this situation."This retraction, published five years before the acquittal, was available to the prosecution throughout.
Salvini's Spy on the Mediterranean, die Zeit, May 2019

WOZ Die Wochenzeitung
Also the the Swiss weekly WOZ published a detailed investigation titled "Salvinis Spion" — tracing Gallo's political motivations, his contacts with Salvini and Meloni, and the broader architecture of the campaign against civil sea rescue.
Salvinis Spion, WOZ, April 2023

Nancy Porsia — an Italian journalist and one of Europe's leading experts on Libya, the country's civil war and migration in the central Mediterranean.

Columbia Global Freedom of Expression, July 2022 – the case demonstrates how anti-Mafia surveillance powers, designed for organised crime investigations, were applied to journalists whose only connection to the case was their reporting on the same waters and the same actors the investigation claimed to be targeting.