The Israeli newspaper "Maariv" revealed the background of the incident involving the capsizing of a tourist boat on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy on Monday, where a group of intelligence agents from Italy and the Israeli Mossad were gathered on board. According to Italian media, four people drowned and five others were injured when the tourist boat, which had around 25 people on board, capsized. Among the deceased were two members of Italian intelligence, an Israeli in his fifties, and the fourth victim was a Russian national.
Reports indicated that the Israeli agents left Italy on an Israeli military flight in haste on Tuesday morning, leaving behind the rented cars they used for the trip. According to the Israeli newspaper's website, Italian and Israeli intelligence officers attended secret meetings in the Lombardy region, during which they exchanged information and classified documents. Due to the lengthy meetings, the Israelis missed their flight and decided to extend their stay and spend the weekend in the area.
It appears that one of the intelligence officers present at the meetings knew the captain and offered to sail his yacht to celebrate a birthday of one of the intelligence officers. The investigation into the incident showed that the captain ignored weather forecasts warning that the sea was rough and winds could reach speeds of 100 kilometers per hour, to the extent that flights in the area had been postponed.
It is also suspected that the captain, who lost his partner in the disastrous capsizing of the tourist yacht, placed 23 passengers on his 15-meter-long boat, despite it only having a capacity of 15 people. According to Maariv, while it seemed like a routine accident, the mystery surrounding the identity of the Israeli victim and the events that followed the capsizing raised many questions.
The Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera" reported that the gathering of passengers on the tourist yacht, initially described as a "birthday party," was actually a secret meeting between Italian and Israeli intelligence agents. The newspaper "La Repubblica" noted that there were 25 agents from the Italian intelligence service and the Israeli Mossad on board the yacht, indicating that Tel Aviv, as part of a covert operation, evacuated 10 Mossad intelligence agents involved in the meeting on a military flight of the Israeli Air Force. The report clarified that following the incident, Italian intelligence agents were discreetly retrieved from emergency rooms to prevent their identities from being revealed.
