Mexico, Italian businessman killed in Chiapas

Italian-born hotel entrepreneur Raphael Tunesi was murdered in Mexico in the municipality of Palenque, Chiapas, near a school.

According to the authorities, several armed men stopped the BMW on board which Tunesi was travelling, who he was going to pick up his daughters from school La Escriba, and they shot him. The Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation to identify those responsible and clarify what happened. 'El Pais' reports

The Attorney General's Office of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas said Tunesi was driving a BMW when he was attacked by a motorcycle hit squad who shot him at close range on a dirt road not far from the 'La Escriba' school in Palenque.

Married for 21 years to his Mexican wife named Elizabeth, the Italian entrepreneur was the father of three daughters to whom he had given, in two cases, names of the Mayan culturePolice sources indicated that the car was hit by numerous bullets, while “at least three shots” they reached Tunesi at the body.

Transferred to the hospital, 'El italiano', as he was nicknamed, died shortly after due to the severity of his injuries. The investigations launched to trace those responsible for the crime led almost immediately to the location of the motorcycle used in the attack abandoned, along with unused bullets and some clothes, in an ecotourism area called 'La Canada'.

A successful businessman as the owner of the Boutique Hotel Quinta Chanabnal integrated with eight Mayan-style suites, he was a lover of this culture of which he could read the epigraphs, even speaking the Cho'l dialect as if it were his mother tongue. In 2014 Raphael Tunesi published, together with Antonio Aimi, the volume 'Mayan Art' for Giunti publisher.

La Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in coordination with the Italian Embassy in Mexico, monitors “with the utmost attention and commitment” the investigation into the killing of the Italian businessman, Raphael Alessandro Tunesi, killed yesterday in his car with several gunshots in Palenques, Chiapas (Mexico); and asks “let light be shed on what happened”. This was reported by sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.