YouTuber Claims His Home Was Raided for Reviewing Third-Party Gaming Handhelds

By Bee Wertheimer  |  July 16, 2025 | 2:48pm
Video Games News Once Were Nerd
YouTuber Claims His Home Was Raided for Reviewing Third-Party Gaming Handhelds

Italian YouTuber Francesco Salicini, known online as Once Were Nerd, claims he’s been sued and had his home raided for reviewing third-party gaming handhelds, as he has stated in a recent YouTube video. 

On April 15, officers of the militarized law enforcement agency Guardia di Finanza entered Salicini’s home with a search warrant to investigate promotion of pirated copyrighted materials, despite Salicini having never been paid to advertise any of the products he reviews. 

Salicini was cooperative as the customs agents seized over 30 of his consoles made by companies such as Anbernic, Powkiddy, and TrimUI. Some of these devices came pre-loaded with microSD cards containing copyrighted ROMs, which officials cited as a violation of Article 171 ter of the Italian Copyright Law. This law was originally written in 1941. 

If the case goes to trial, Salicini states, he risks facing six months to three years in prison and a fine of up to 15,000 euros for reviewing products he did not manufacture nor get sponsored to promote.

Salicini complied with requests for backups of his emails, WhatsApp conversations, and various social media accounts, but even after giving them the data, the customs agents took his cell phone. Salicini informed the agents that he needed his phone for work unrelated to his review channel, and they promised to return it within a week. He did not get his phone back for two months.

Despite the case still being in the investigation phase, Italian law permits the Guardia di Finanza to request preventive suspension of Salicini’s social media accounts before a judgement is even ruled. 

It is unclear if the report comes from Nintendo, the Guardia di Finanza themselves, or another source. Salicini will not find out who the sender is until the investigation phase concludes in approximately six months, but in the meantime all of his channels may be shuttered at any moment.

 
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