• Two Italian spies and a Mossad agent among four killed in boat sinking on Lake Maggiore

It was late on the morning of Sunday, May 28. The secret agents (21 men and women, both Italian from the AISE and Israeli Mossad) disembarked from a "houseboat" registered in Slovenia on Isola dei Pescatori, the smallest of the Borromean islands of Lake Maggiore. They wore casual clothes: sneakers, jeans, polo shirts or T-shirts. Clothing perhaps compatible with a lunch, tasted at the starred restaurant "Il Verbano" as part of an end-of-mission excursion, or perhaps clothing used to pretend to be ordinary tourists as part of the tactics of their mission as spies.

But what mission? The island was crowded, the locals too, although there were overnight rooms that could have accommodated them. Next to the group was the skipper of the boat, Claudio Carminati, who is being investigated for what happened that same afternoon (the shipwreck in the center of the lake due to a storm, perhaps a whirlwind, a hundred meters off the coast of Varese in which four people drowned).

Carminati, 60, is a valuable and trusted contact in the secret services, so his presence was not abnormal. The skipper was traveling with his wife Anna Bozhkova, 50, one of the victims along with agents Tiziana Barnobi and Claudio Alonzi, 53 and 62, and former Mossad agent Shimoni Erez, whose funeral was held at his home with the order of the dome of the secret services to give media echo to the ceremony. Anna, in Italy with unlimited residence permit, was of Russian nationality. Therefore, functional for hypothetical translation services or conversations with compatriots.

Until now, we had focused on the geography of the disaster, coinciding with the coast of Sesto Calende, in the area of Varese, where the ship sank. But on this other shore, the Piedmontese of the Verbania area, the Corriere discovered the following scenario. In recent times, there has been an increase in arrivals of Russian "heavyweights", focused on the remodeling and opening of hotels, by their own admission, with the stated aim of moving investments from Lake Como to Lake Maggiore. Even 7-star hotels (in Pallanza), not far from the magnificent villa bought by another Russian, suddenly disappeared. He invested capital in renovating the mansion but then, when it was ready, it disappeared. From one day to the next. It is not known where it went. No one can say or imagine it.

A second, equally extra-luxurious hotel in Baveno will bring with it the creation of a gigantic and exclusive park to attract a wealthy clientele. Now, the ban since the beginning of the war in Ukraine on exporting capital from Russia is easily circumvented thanks to deposits in Switzerland, to Italian and foreign companies of friends, or even - there have been recent episodes - to the displacements of the wives and lovers of the tycoons who land in Malpensa and move only in chauffeured cars. to reduce the traces of their movements. The trips are directed mainly to the shores of Lugano, and from the canton of Ticino to these coasts.

The coastline of Verbania is also par excellence the destination of Orthodox Jews, who own historic villas where they celebrate elitist parties with American guests. In short, an endless crossing of people, interests, euros and dollars. Could it be that the secret services followed a particular man and the flow of his investments?

But who? Such a large team of agents can develop multiple actions: inspections, tracking, installation of hidden microphones, selective raids. Or pure industrial espionage maneuvers: we must not forget that the Israelis could have important interests in monitoring contacts between Italian and Iranian companies, dedicated to the trade of components used for drones.

Once the misfortune occurred in the water, the intelligence activated a typical exfiltration operation, that is, the recovery of personnel avoiding identifications and escapes, shortening the stopover times in hospitals and releasing as soon as possible the rented or government-owned houses where the agents had stayed. But the same Italian and Israeli intelligence will try to prevent counter-espionage from discovering what the 21 spies were after in both Varese and Piedmont, what they might have found or what they had in imminent preparation after acquiring the information, taking the photographs and capturing the voices they needed.

  • Switzerland
  • Ukraine
  • Russia
  • Italy
  • Slovenia

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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