Four Italian divers vanished off the Maldives, then a recovery team found their bodies inside a place called the ‘shark cave’

Four Italian scuba divers who went missing in the waters off the Maldives have been found dead inside a network of underwater caves known locally as the shark cave. Authorities confirmed on Monday, May 18, that the recovery effort successfully located the group after they disappeared on Thursday, May 14. A team from Divers Alert Network Europe carried out the operation, locating the tourists inside the Thinwana Kandu cave system in the Vaavu Atoll.

The individuals identified are Monica Montefalcone, her 20-year-old daughter Giorgia Sommacal, Muriel Oddenino, and Federico Gualtieri. The diving instructor, Gianluca Benedetti, had already been recovered on Friday, May 15, one day after the group first went missing. The rescue effort also claimed an additional life: Sergeant Major Mohammed Mahudhee, a Maldivian rescue diver who died while searching for the missing tourists.

Ahmed Shaam, a Maldives government spokesperson, confirmed that the four were found well inside the cave’s third segment, described as the largest part of the system. As reported by UNILAD, the bodies were found “pretty much together,” deep inside the maze-like structure. Laura Marroni, CEO of DAN Europe, described the operation as the result of “extraordinary preparation, technical excellence, and exceptional teamwork.”

The dive appears to have exceeded the Maldives’ legal depth limit

Four of the five divers had ties to the University of Genoa. The institution released a statement expressing deep sorrow for the loss of Monica Montefalcone, an associate professor of Ecology, her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, a Biomedical Engineering student, research fellow Muriel Oddenino, and recent Marine Biology graduate Federico Gualtieri. The university noted that the sympathy of the entire community goes out to the families and colleagues of those involved.

The Maldives enforces a recreational diving limit of 30 meters, roughly 98 feet. The tour operator managing the trip stated it did not authorize or have prior knowledge of any dive that exceeded those limits. Monica Montefalcone’s husband, Carlo Sommacal, noted that his wife had completed 5,000 dives during her career and was an expert in the water. He also mentioned she typically carried a GoPro on her dives, which could potentially provide answers for the families, amid ongoing diver safety discussions about the judgment calls that arise in open water.

The cave system itself added to the difficulty of the recovery. The Maldives government described it as labyrinthine, and the operation required specialist cave diving expertise to navigate. The dangers of becoming trapped in an enclosed underground environment are well documented, with cases like the fatal Nutty Putty Cave entrapment in Utah illustrating how quickly such environments can become inescapable.

The Italian foreign ministry confirmed that causes of death for the four tourists have not yet been determined. Further dives are planned in the coming days to recover the bodies from the cave.