Almost three years later, new details emerge about the boat accident on Lake Maggiore in which the owner’s wife, two Italian 007s and a Mossad agent lost their lives. The latter, we now learn, was conducting an operation against Iran. Mossad director David Barnea said it for the first time during the Remembrance Day ceremony.
The mysterious man
Barnea did not provide details on the man’s identity, calling him generically “M”, limiting himself to saying that he died abroad during operations against Iran. The Israeli media identified “M” with the man killed in the accident on Lake Maggiore. According to the Jerusalem Post and Channel 12, the Mossad agent died in Italy in 2023 while collaborating with Italian secret services to prevent Tehran from obtaining advanced weapons.
The Israeli agent who died in Italy was buried in Ashkelon in the same year, in a funeral attended by the Mossad leaders, all wearing hats and masks, the Israeli media recall. At the time, Barnea described him as “a man of refined manners, a lover of humanity, kind-hearted, calm and quiet. A man who knew how to be among people. Adults and young people, foreigners and Israelis always surrounded him, and he knew how to speak to everyone in their language, in every sense of the word, calmly and respectfully.”
Barnea’s speech represents the first public mention of ‘M’s death, Israeli media write. He led “relevant and significant” operations for Israel’s security and had a notable impact on the campaign against Iran, Barnea said, according to Israeli media.
The strange accident
In the accident on Lake Maggiore, in addition to the Israeli agent, Claudio Alonzi and Tiziana Barnobi, husband and wife both employees of Aise, the intelligence section of the Information System for the Security of the Republic, which has intelligence tasks and activities outside the national territory, died. Anya Bozhkova, 50-year-old wife of skipper Claudio Carminati, also lost her life.
An initial unofficial reconstruction spoke of a birthday party on board the boat, a trip with old friends and former colleagues that ended in tragedy. Only later and above all when the work carried out by the victims and others present emerged, the idea of the party gave way to that of an undercover operation. The details were never leaked.