The mother of the Ecuadorian girl wounded in the shooting that took place in Los Yoses last Wednesday, where Italian businessman Salvatore Ponzo died, said that it is possible that the motive for the crime is linked to aa commercial strife.
Lopez Toaquiza’s mother, from her home in the historic center of Genoa, spoke to the Italian news agency ANSA.
The 26-year-old Ecuadorian, fiancée of Ponzo was injured in the ambush in which the Italian businessman was killed.
“My daughter, fortunately, is well,” says the young woman’s mother, “she only suffered a fracture, falling. I still could not talk to her because she’s without a phone, she lost him in the ambush and then someone stole it. The news of my daughter comes to me by way of the embassy”.
Both Ponzo and Lopez met in Genoa, where they usually lived and traveled to Costa Rica to attend to Ponzo’s business, Tierra Nuestra Latina, a company based in Pital de San Carlos, that shipped pineapple and other fruits to Europe, established between 2014 and 2015 by Ponzo and other partners.
Ponzo, 36, was killed by at least 6 shots fired at point-blank range by two gunmen traveling on a motorcycle near the Italian embassy in San Jose. The deceased, born in Catania, Sicily spent most of his life in Sampierdarena, one of the most popular neighborhoods of Genoa, in the Liguria region, in northern Italy.
Meanwhile, López remains hospitalized in the Calderón Guardia.
“My daughter and Salvatore were together for years. They had met in Genoa. Salvatore was a good guy, an honest worker. His company was dedicated to the export of pineapples to all of Europe. ”
“It seems that the more they grew, the more problems they had with companies of the same type in that place. Maybe that’s why they killed him. Three years ago, when he had just arrived in Costa Rica, he refused to connect with companies of an entrepreneur who grows and exports pineapple. Maybe that’s why they killed him. There is no other reasons for such a brutal murder.,” the woman was quoted by ANSA as saying. “Salvatore and my daughter were talking about getting married and moving permanently to Costa Rica. Now I’m only interested in getting my daughter back home.”
Toaquiza’s mother said her daughter is under police custody while in the hospital and is looking to get her daughter back home with her in Italy. “In the next few days I will try to convince diplomacy (embassy) to put my daughter on a plane to get her back to Genoa, if she does not, I will go to her,” the woman told Ansa.
According to a report by Ansa, the Prosecutor’s Office in Rome (Procura di Roma) opened a parallel investigation in the murder of Ponzo and began to coordinate with the Costa Rican authorities through the embassy in San José.
The news of Ponzo’s murder and that of Stefano Calandrelli days earlier was featured in the Italian press, in addition to Ansa, La Stampa, Genova Today, Urbanpost, Primo Canale, Live Sicilia Catania, and others.
The Ponzo and Calandrelli murders are unrelated.
