Italian police searching ArcelorMittal offices over Ilva probe

ROME (Reuters) - Italian police are searching ArcelorMittal <MT.AS> offices in Milan and the southern city of Taranto in an investigation into the troubled Ilva steel plant, which the company wants to hand back to the government, two people close to the case said on Tuesday.

An ArcelorMittal spokesman confirmed the search in Taranto but said he had no information on whether the Milan office was also being searched.

The Italian government filed an urgent court appeal last Friday to try to stop ArcelorMittal walking away from a 2018 deal to buy the heavily polluting Ilva plant, which employs some 8,200 workers in an area of high unemployment.

(Reporting by Angelo Amante and Emilio Parodi; editing by James Mackenzie)