Italian police said Thursday they had raided a company specialising in military drones that they believe was illegally bought by Chinese state firms as a way of acquiring its expertise.

The financial crimes police said they had identified three Italian and three Chinese managers suspected of breaking the law on the circulation of armaments and on the protection of strategic Italian companies.

An investigation by prosecutors in Pordenone, northeast Italy, found that in 2018 a Hong Kong-based company had paid a vastly inflated price for 75 percent of the Italian firm, which had contracts with the defence ministry.

Behind the purchasing company was a complex web of corporate holdings traced back to "two important government-owned companies in the People's Republic of China", the police statement said.

The authorities were not informed of the sale, as is required by law, while the temporary export of a military drone to China, ostensibly for a 2019 Shanghai fair, was not properly declared.

Police said the Italian firm had been bought not as an investment but "exclusively for the acquisition of its technological and production know-how, including military", with plans allegedly under way to transfer production facilities to the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi.