At the root of the public deterioration of relations between Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni there is not only Italy’s refusal to grant the use of the Sigonella military base to the United States last March, while they were engaged in the war with Iran. There would also be the non-adherence to Purl, the mechanism for supplying weapons – essentially American – to Ukraine. And also, as revealed today by Foglio, the presence in the Italian customs of scanners from the Chinese company Nuctech, considered risky for national security.
A STEP BACK: WHAT NUCTECH DOES
Nuctech specializes in the production of threat detection devices. Specifically, it manufactures X-ray scanners used for baggage control at airports, or for checking the contents of containers arriving at ports.
The company is present in over one hundred seventy countries and is indirectly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party: it belongs to the state group Tsinghua Tongfang, active in the fields of information technology, consumer electronics, energy, and others.
WHAT THE UNITED STATES AND THE EUROPEAN UNION THINK
The United States do not trust Nuctech: they fear espionage and data theft, to the point that already in 2020 they had placed the company on a “blacklist” of entities risky for American national security.
More recently, last December, the European Commission launched an investigation into Nuctech, suspected of having received subsidies from the Beijing government that could have strengthened its competitiveness in the Union, giving it an unfair advantage over competitors.
THE HISTORY BETWEEN NUCTECH AND THE ITALIAN CUSTOMS AGENCY
According to two US sources consulted by Foglio, the Trump administration accuses the Meloni government of “yielding on some national security issues,” among which is the use – precisely – of Nuctech scanners by the Customs and Monopolies Agency, now directed by Roberto Alesse.
However, the facts date back to 2021, when the agency was led by Marcello Minenna. Minenna was appointed by the Five Star Movement, which in 2019 was in government with the League and had signed the memorandum of understanding with China on the New Silk Road, later abandoned by Meloni in 2023.
In 2020 Minenna decided to revoke a tender for the purchase of five scanners equipped with backscatter technology, which allows detecting hidden materials inside containers and vehicles passing through customs. According to Minenna, since it was a sensitive technology, the economic parameter should not have been the priority criterion in determining the tender winner: a new procedure was therefore opened, in which the US company Rapiscan and the Chinese Nuctech participated.
Between the two, the Customs Agency chose Rapiscan’s technology, qualitatively superior, safer and less controversial: in fact, the Danish customs agency had already discarded Nuctech scanners precisely for security reasons.
HOW NUCTECH’S BACKSCATTER TECHNOLOGY WORKS
Nuctech’s system, in fact – a source explained to Foglio –, “works like this: the operator in the van does not see the actual image recorded by the backscatter, but a stock image that the computer associates with what it believes to see inside the container. For example: if there are drones inside, but the software is set so that the image corresponds to a stock photo of bananas, the operator facing a container full of drones will only see bananas.”
THE APPEAL TO THE LAZIO REGIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
The tender launched by the Customs Agency, therefore, ended in the summer of 2021 with the awarding of the supply of the five scanners to Rapiscan. A few weeks later, however, Nuctech decided to appeal to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, claiming the invalidity of the exclusion from the tender.
At this point, the Customs Agency decided to remove from the position – without notice – lawyer Alessandro Canali, that is “the manager of the customs general directorate who was preparing the defenses for the administration.”
Finally, in March 2022 the Lazio Regional Administrative Court accepted Nuctech’s claim, citing the Danish tender initially won by the Chinese company, but from which it was then excluded due to the poor safety of its scanners. It is unclear why, but the Italian Customs Agency had not filed in court the documentation received from the Danish authority, where the reasons for the renunciation of Nuctech technology were explained.
The Customs Agency also decided not to appeal the Regional Administrative Court’s ruling.
THE LACK OF NUCTECH SCANNERS
Moreover, when in May 2025 Nuctech delivered the scanners to the Customs Agency, it was discovered that the devices were missing a component considered essential by the tender. “A problem that should have required the return of the scanners to the supplier,” Il Foglio wrote, “and yet does not prevent them from being tested, installed and paid for anyway.”
