A lot has happened in the nine days since BuzzFeed News revealed it had obtained an explosive recording of a longtime aide to Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and five other men negotiating the terms of a proposed deal to channel Russian oil money to Salvini’s far-right Lega party.



Public prosecutors in Milan have ramped up their investigation of the proposed deal and the meeting to discuss it at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow last October. Italian news outlets have dug deep into the story they’ve dubbed “Moscopoli” — Moscowgate. New information has come to light on some of the men around the table with the aide, Gianluca Savoini, and on his close political relationship with Salvini, which goes back 20 years.

But there are still important questions that remain unanswered, from Salvini’s exact role, if any, to the identities of the three Russians at the meeting. So here’s our rundown of everything we’ve learned about the Metropol negotiation since the BuzzFeed News story was published, and the key things we still don’t know.

The two other Italians who can be heard on the recording with Savoini have come forward.

Last weekend, an international lawyer called Gianluca Meranda wrote a letter to La Repubblica newspaper revealing that he was the “Luca” who could be heard on the recording discussing in fine detail the proposed oil deal.

Meranda told the newspaper that he was acting as legal counsel for an investment bank.

On Tuesday, the third Italian on the tape — “Francesco” — went public. Francesco Vannucci told the Italian press agency ANSA that he had taken part in the meeting as a consultant and banking expert who has for years collaborated with Meranda. The aim of the Moscow meeting was “purely professional,” he added.

The homes of both Vannucci and Meranda where searched by Italian police Wednesday, Italian media reported. Meranda has been interviewed by prosecutors who are investigating possible “international corruption,” but declined to answer questions, as did Savoini, according to reports.

Savoini can be heard in the recording — you can read the entire transcript here — describing the three Italians as “a triumvirate”; Savoini said they needed to be a “watertight compartment” and “more than prudent.”

An Italian magazine published documents that show discussions around the oil deal continued well after the October meeting at the Metropol.

On Thursday, L’Espresso published documents that it claims show that negotiations on the proposed oil deal discussed at the Metropol hotel continued beyond October 2018, into this year. The documents are of correspondence between the investment bank represented by Meranda, Savoini, and two Russian oil firms referencing a proposed oil deal similar in size and content to the one discussed in Moscow.

The bank, Euro-IB, told the magazine that it knew nothing about money being siphoned off for the Lega party, and its letter was simply a “non-binding expression of interest” requesting the price of fuel products to sell to various traders in several countries around the world. It added that no agreement had been reached.

In an interview the next day with La Repubblica, the director of Euro-IB, Glauco Verdoia, confirmed to the newspaper that Meranda was the bank’s legal counselor and Euro-IB had expressed interest in purchasing three tonnes of fuel at a discounted rate from Russian oil firm Rosneft last October. Verdoia is adamant, however, that the bank knew nothing about Lega and Savoini.

He also claimed that the potential deal never materialized, and all talk of it ended in December. Verdoia said he was completely unaware of the subsequent proposals referenced in the documents published by L’Espresso on Thursday. Verdoia also confirmed knowing Vannucci.

Matteo Salvini and Gianluca Savoini had dinner together the night before the Metropol meeting.

Salvini did not attend the Metropol meeting, but he was in Moscow at the time. The newspaper Corriere della Sera revealed Friday that on the evening before the Metropol meeting, Oct. 17, he had dinner at a Moscow restaurant called Ruski with four members of his staff, Savoini, and the chiefs of Confindustria Russia, an industry group that hosted an event the Lega leader spoke at earlier that day.