Valter Lavitola, born in Salerno in 1966, has been a politician, journalist, publisher, and entrepreneur. He began his career in the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and later moved to the center-right, becoming close to Silvio Berlusconi. In 2003 he became director of the newspaper L'Avanti!, historically tied to the PSI, after founding a cooperative that acquired the publication. In 2004 he ran for the European Parliament with Forza Italia in the Southern constituency, obtaining approximately 54,000 preferences without being elected.

Lavitola's name is linked to several judicial cases. In September 2010, L'Avanti! published an official document from the Caribbean state of Saint Lucia suggesting that the real owner of an apartment in Montecarlo, at 14 Boulevard Princesse Charlotte, was Giancarlo Tulliani, brother-in-law of then Chamber President Gianfranco Fini. The document had been obtained through Lavitola's personal contacts with the Minister of Justice of Saint Lucia. The publication contributed to a political crisis involving Fini.

In September 2011 a judge issued an arrest warrant for Lavitola, who remained a fugitive for about eight months, staying in Latin America, between Panama and Argentina. He returned to Italy on April 16, 2012 and was arrested.

The Prosecutor's Office of Naples investigated him for alleged embezzlement of approximately 23.2 million euros in public funding to the press obtained by L'Avanti! between 1997 and 2009. On November 9, 2012, he plea-bargained a sentence of three years and eight months. On March 11, 2015, the Court of Auditors of Lazio ordered him and Sergio De Gregorio to return approximately 23.2 million euros to the State, deemed improperly received.

Lavitola was also investigated for international corruption in Panama, where he allegedly acted as a mediator in the payment of bribes to members of the government of President Ricardo Martinelli, in connection with a 176-million-dollar prison construction contract. The investigation also hypothesized a consultancy contract with Finmeccanica used as cover.

On March 4, 2013, he was sentenced to two years and eight months for attempted extortion against Silvio Berlusconi. According to the judges, Lavitola had requested five million euros in exchange for not disclosing information related to the investigation in Bari on the so-called escort case. The sum was never paid.

On July 8, 2015, Lavitola was sentenced to three years in prison for complicity in corruption, in relation to the so-called purchase of senators, an operation carried out together with Sergio De Gregorio aimed at bringing down Romano Prodi's government in 2008. The Court of Cassation later declared the corruption charge time-barred for both defendants.

After approximately four years of detention at the Secondigliano prison, in March 2016 Lavitola was placed under house arrest. Since then he has managed a fish restaurant in the Monteverde district of Rome.

In the context of the investigation into the bombing against Sigfrido Ranucci, which occurred in October 2025 outside the home of the Report host, the Rome District Anti-Mafia Directorate has registered Lavitola as a suspect, considering him the alleged mastermind. Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit of Rome and Frascati carried out a search of his home and seized phones, computers, and electronic devices.

Four people had already been arrested a few days earlier as alleged executors of the attack: Antonio Passariello, Saverio Mutone, Pellegrino D'Avino, and Marika De Filippi. They are accused, together with Lavitola, of illegal possession, carrying in a public place, and use of an explosive device, as well as threat and damage, aggravated by having acted in a group of more than five people and with mafia-like methods. The charge of massacre is also contested against Lavitola.

According to investigators, the intermediary between Lavitola and the group of executors would have been Gomes Celesio Tavares, 47, who worked at Lavitola's restaurant in Rome. Tavares would have managed contacts, cars, and logistical cover for the attack. According to some press reports, Tavares has in the meantime returned to Cameroon. The reconstruction of the chain of command was made possible through the analysis of phones and contacts of the four arrested, in which the presumed mastermind was initially indicated only as "that one," without ever naming him.

The motive for the attack remains under investigation. According to some press reports, there would be no ongoing investigations or reports by the Report program on Lavitola, and the hypothesis that the attack was motivated by Ranucci's journalistic work would tend to be excluded. An anonymous email received in April by the prosecutor, titled Easter Gift, attributed the attack to an individual who allegedly worked for the Moccia clan of Afragola, attempting to exonerate the clan; the subsequent investigative developments would seem to confirm the estrangement of the Camorra trail.

Ranucci has declared that he considered Lavitola a friend and that he was stunned by the news. The two had been in frequent contact since 2019. The host stated he was convinced of Lavitola's innocence and that he could not believe he would ever have wanted to harm him or his family. Contacts between the two would have continued even after the arrest of the four alleged executors. In May 2023 a photo published by Il Riformista portrayed Ranucci and Lavitola together at the latter's restaurant in Rome, during a dinner also attended by Monsignor Giovanni Fusco, a collaborator of Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. The publication of the image reportedly caused tensions between Ranucci and Matteo Renzi.

Lavitola, for his part, limited himself to declaring that he would speak upon release from prison.