The OVRA (Organizzazione di Vigilanza Repressione dell'Antifascismo, English: Organisation for Vigilance Against Anti-Fascism) was the secret police of Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy. It was formed in 1927, founded and lead by Arturo Bocchini .

About 4,000 people were arrested by the OVRA and sent to prisons on remote Mediterranean islands. The conditions in these prisons were extremely poor so many anti-Fascists simply left Italy for their own safety.

The death penalty had also been restored under Mussolini for serious offences, but from 1927 to 1940, only ten people were sentenced to death. As a result, the actions of the OVRA have been massively overshadowed by the actions of their contemporaries, the Gestapo and SS in Nazi Germany and the NKVD of the Soviet Union.

During World War II, the OVRA was used by Mussolini to control resistance groups in the Balkans (Tito's National Liberation Army especially), however, Italy was eventually expelled from the Balkans by these resistance groups.

In 1943, with the Allied invasion of Italy, the OVRA began to recruit double agents to infiltrate the British SOE, but these efforts failed to stop Mussolini's ouster.

With the establishment of the Italian Social Republic in northern Italy, many OVRA agents flocked to this puppet state lead by Mussolini, fighting until Mussolini was lynched by partisans on April 28, 1945.

Unsurprisingly, OVRA agents were favourite targets of communist partisans, as they were a symbol of the fascist government's oppression.

Referenece

The Ultimate Spy by H. Keith Melton , ISBN 0-86438-875-6