Cottarelli massacre: 20 years since the Brescia triple homicide

Twenty years have passed since the Cottarelli massacre, a brutal triple homicide that occurred in Brescia on August 28, 2006. The victims, real estate developer Angelo Cottarelli, his wife Marzenna Topor, and their 17-year-old son Luca, were killed in their home in the Urago Mella district.

Investigations revealed the crime was not a random robbery, despite attempts to stage the scene. Instead, the massacre was linked to fraudulent business dealings between Brescia and Paceco, Sicily. Vito Marino, an entrepreneur from Paceco and son of the prominent mafia figure Girolamo ‘Mommo ’u nano’ Marino, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders.

The motive involved a scheme using false invoices and non-existent operations to inflate expenses for agricultural companies. This allowed for the illicit acquisition of public funding from the Sicilian Region, the Ministry of Productive Activities, and the European Union, centered around the Vigna Verde winery in Paceco.