AGCOM fined Retelit and Tekmind €822,500 for unverified numbers behind spoofed calls

On September 23, 2026, Italy's communications regulator AGCOM fined Retelit Digital Services €700,000 and Tekmind €122,500 for failing to implement control measures over the use of telephone numbers. Both are number assignees; AGCOM's rules require them to verify the accuracy of the numbers call centres use — including whether those numbers were generated through spoofing — and to manage assigned numbers with due care. The fines followed a supervisory investigation opened in November 2025 on the basis of numerous reports.

Spoofing displays an Italian number over a call that actually originates abroad, making fraud look local and answerable. To kill the route, AGCOM obliged operators to filter international calls presenting Italian numbers: in the first eight months of 2026 the filters blocked around 191 million calls — nearly 790,000 a day, 7.2% of all international traffic, including 148 million aimed at Italian mobiles. After the block extended to mobiles on November 19, 2025, calls from abroad to Italian mobiles fell 95%, from 26.8 million to 1.2 million a day.

With the international route throttled, AGCOM says fraudulent traffic first shifted to foreign numbers, then decayed back to pre-filter levels — too visible to sell with. Blocked spoofed traffic and consumer reports let the authority trace operators and call centres inside Italy whose conduct broke the rules; the Retelit and Tekmind fines are that domestic phase of the enforcement.

€700,000 for Retelit and €122,500 for Tekmind — €822,500 combined — under measures adopted September 23, 2026.

Both firms held number-assignee duties — verify the numbers call centres use, including spoofed ones — and implemented no control measures over their use.

Spoofed Italian numbers made foreign marketing calls look domestic; the assignee verification duty exists precisely to stop that.

AGCOM's filter data made the scale undeniable — 191 million blocked calls in eight months — giving the regulator the evidence base to climb the supply chain to the assignees.

Assigning phone numbers is not neutral plumbing: assignees must verify how they are used. Block the cross-border route and the domestic residue — and its enablers — becomes easy to find.

The measures were adopted on September 23, 2026. AGCOM's blocking regime continues: unwanted calls persist, but the authority says the penalties shift enforcement focus to the domestic assignment chain, where reports can now be traced to specific operators. No appeal outcome has been reported.