Pegaso Investigation: Money in Exchange for Silence: How Newspaper Editors Were Corrupted

"One-to-one coverage," the "Ferrante strategy," or "ecosystem protection": these are the paradigms adopted by the leaders of Fabio Domenico Vaccarono's Multiversity group to activate a system of "sentinels" among the major Italian publishing groups to adjust, preview news, or silence articles in exchange for advertising investments.

This is the system that Vaccarono, in concert with the top management and the communications company Comin&Partners of Gianluigi Giansante, also under investigation, devised as early as 2025 in anticipation of the dissemination of news about investigations involving his group.

The investigators' trap and the wiretaps: lunch with the CEO of the Sole 24 Ore Group and director Fabio Tamburini

The 'trap' set by investigators to expose the corruption system in the communications sector worked perfectly, so much so that since May 2026, when the first rumors emerged about the investigation into Danilo Iervolino, former head of UniPegaso, and the fake enrollments and degrees, Fabio Domenico Vaccarono has been kept under constant surveillance.

The wiretaps on the Multiversity president's telephone numbers leave no room for interpretation, especially in the investigation into private corruption involving the 'one-to-one coverage' method: direct relationships with CEOs, advertising agencies, and newspaper editors to manipulate communications by virtue of generous sponsorships.

An investment of hundreds of thousands of euros, which increased significantly when the investigation into UniPegaso came to light between May and June.

Investigators' monitoring revealed that news about the legal case was ignored, relegated to the provincial pages, or adjusted during the process, or distorted, making the online university appear to be the victim of the system invented by Danilo Iervolino or Maria Rosaria Boccia, accused of plagiarism for copying 91% of her thesis at the university. All this in exchange for "more money to give to major Italian publishers, including you," as Vaccarono told Federico Silvestri, CEO of the Sole 24 Ore group.

The relationship between Multiversity and the 24 Ore Group – according to the Neapolitan magistrates – falls within the framework of 'one-to-one coverage', that is, 'a privileged dialogue with the media in which the availability of advertising resources is valorized by Vaccarono as a functional utility to gain control and mitigate judicial news about Multiversity and UT Pegaso.'

One of the incidents recorded by investigators is emblematic. On May 7, after a meeting with the CVC group, Vaccarono took steps to re-establish relations with Sole 24 Ore, and in particular with CEO Federico Silvestri. The intermediary was always the fixer Luigi Bisignani. The president of Multiservity was urgently trying to complete this mission, and the messages between him and Bisignani were explicit. Within a short time, the intermediary announced "mission accomplished," and Vaccarono explained that the critical moment was the "Neapolitan events," for which he needed "friendly newspapers," specifying that "we are making a lot of investments in Sole 24 Ore."

Over 1 million and one hundred thousand euros of advertising for the Sole 24 group in three years

Cross-checks by investigators at Sogei spa, the group's advertising agency, reveal that from 2023 to 2026, Multiversity and UT Pegaso paid over €1.1 million in advertising to Il Sole 24 Ore spa.

Vaccarono is aiming high, and in addition to speaking with CEO Silvestri, he needs to speak directly with Fabio Tamburini (not under investigation in the investigation), the newspaper's editor-in-chief, with whom relations have deteriorated. He knows he is the key person in preventing the release of "unpleasant" news. Tamburini avoids meeting him, but Bisignani is working to thaw relations and on May 13th, he organizes a lunch at his office with Tamburini, Vaccarono, and Silvestri. The meeting is supervised and recorded by investigators.

Extra budget for publishing companies even in a 'difficult year'

After lunch, Vaccarono and Silvestri, CEO of the Sole Group (under investigation), chatted outside the building. The conversation between the two, intercepted by investigators, revealed the topic of the meeting. Vaccarono discussed "extra budget," meaning more money to be given to publishing groups, and particularly to Sole, despite it being "a difficult year." The "good news," as Silvestri commented, is, according to the Prosecutor's Office, symptomatic of a renewed agreement between the two companies.

The role of Giansante's Comin & Partners in taming the press

According to investigators, this agreement was confirmed by another conversation on June 15, 2026, in which the president of Multiservity spoke with Comin (the communications company he uses) because he was concerned about a 'visit' to his LinkedIn profile by a journalist from Il Sole 24 Ore, but Comin reassured him that 'we have truly sterilized the Group'.

The search warrant and related notice of investigation issued against Multiservity's top management focuses on the issue of Italian newspapers appeased by advertising sponsorships.

Il Fatto Quotidiano and the 'thorn in the side' of the clique: the sponsorship of the Festa and the compliance of Peter Gomez

On June 9th, there was a "plugging" to do for articles on the Pegaso investigation by the Naples Prosecutor's Office. The newspaper that raised the issue was the print edition of Il Fatto, so Vaccarono took action, updating the CVC representative on the article that had appeared in the newspaper.

The positive aspect is that the newspaper focuses the headline on Iervolino's responsibilities, but there's one word the Multiservity president doesn't like—"clique"—so he contacts co-editor Peter Gomez, to whom Il Fatto's CEO Cinzia Monteverdi announced the call. Vaccarono asks "if we can avoid posting (the article, ed.) online, I'd be very welcome" and complains about the somewhat "aggressive" headline. Gomez promptly complies: "Cinzia wrote to me, now I'll contact the site people... I won't let it go up."

The investigators' response was immediate: the newspaper's website did not publish the article about the falsification of "exams and degrees," but only the one about Maria Rosaria Boccia's plagiarism of the thesis, in which Pegaso is the injured party. Furthermore, the investigators write, after the online university sponsored the Fatto Quotidiano festival on September 17th and the meeting between Gomez, Vaccarono reported that he was being sought for the position of president of the school and the newspaper's television activities. It's a quid pro quo, a pact in which journalism and news always pay the price.

A pact in which economic power prevails over the constitutional right to be informed.