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Veneto’s regional governor, Luca Zaia, promoted an online survey that purportedly showed overwhelming support for secession. But the Corriere del Veneto paper this week reported that most of its 2.6 million votes backing secession were generated by computers abroad.

One survey organizer, Gianluca Busato, called the crackdown a “ridiculous” overreaction by the state.

“We are peaceful democrats,” Busato said on Sky TG24. “We have the people on our side.”

The Veneto region, centred on Venice, helped transform Italy into an industrial power in the 1960s and 1970s. The small- and medium-sized, family-run businesses that were the source of the region’s success have been hit particularly hard by the economic crisis. The secessionist sentiment is rooted in anger that the north’s money is appropriated by Rome in taxes.

The arrested reportedly include two people involved in the 1997 St. Mark’s takeover, the founder of the secession-minded Liga Veneta as well as organizers of the “Pitchfork Protests” that sprang up last December aimed at ousting Italy’s entire political class.

Police said they also sequestered weapons in raids that extended into other regions with secessionist movements, including Lombardy and Piedmont in the north and the island of Sardinia.