Bologna – From Italy toward Albania, with Israel as the destination? The mystery of the four Georgians with forged passports

Four Georgian citizens, among them a man and two women around 40 years old, as well as a minor, have been stopped by the Italian authorities after they attempted to travel to Israel using forged Israeli passports, as tgcom24.it writes.

The incident is being investigated by the Italian authorities, who are trying to uncover the links between the persons involved and the reasons for using forged documents.

According to preliminary information, the four Georgian citizens had arrived together in Bologna on October 4, on a flight from Istanbul. A day later, they split into two groups, following different itineraries in an attempt to reach Israel.

Two of them, a man and a woman around 40, presented themselves at Bologna airport intending to depart for Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, the other two flew to Catania, in Sicily, where they also attempted to board a flight to the Israeli city.

However, their plans were interrupted by border police checks. All four persons were discovered at the moment of boarding, after presenting forged Israeli passports.

The discoveries were made within a span of a few hours, at two different Italian airports.

Two of them left for Albania

The two persons stopped in Bologna were reported at liberty by the border police, while they later left Italy in the direction of Albania. According to sources cited by Italian media, they had no precedents in police force archives and were regularly present on Italian territory.

The authorities state that the two citizens had entered Italy with regular documents of their country of origin. After the forged documents were discovered, they used their original documents again to depart for Albania.

The situation was different for the two persons checked in Catania. According to information published by Italian media, the woman was arrested, while the minor was released and reported.

Investigations to uncover the links between the four persons

The case has set the Italian investigative structures in motion. The investigations are being coordinated by the General Directorates of Investigation and Special Operations (Digos), which are trying to determine whether the four persons were connected to each other, where they had stayed during the time they were in Bologna and what they intended to achieve through the use of forged passports.

Another important element of the investigation relates to their statements during the checks and the explanations they gave after the authorities established that the documents presented were not authentic.

According to security sources, so far no special alerts related to terrorism have been activated. However, the investigations are still in the early stages and the authorities are trying to verify all the circumstances of the case, without ruling out any lead.

The case has been considered particularly delicate also because of when it happened, close to the anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 and only a few days after an attempted hijacking of a FlyDubai company plane.

The Prosecutor’s Office had also been informed about the case discovered in Bologna, which has opened a file and started the relevant verifications.

The fact that the two persons stopped in that city have already left Italy may complicate the course of the investigations.

For the moment, the authorities have not announced final conclusions on the motives of the four Georgian citizens or on any possible link to criminal or terrorist organizations. The investigations are expected to shed light on the purpose of the trip and the reasons that pushed them to use forged documents to enter Israel.