On 18 August, the relics of Saint Agatha were stolen from the reliquary in a church in Brescia, leaving behind a reliquary of much greater commercial value than its sacred contents.
As the sacristan went out to clean the presbytery, he noticed that the gold urn containing the saint's relics was open. He approached it and realised that it had been emptied of its contents. The parish priest, Giambattista Francesconi, admitted that the urn containing the relics was not locked: ‘The thieves only stole the relic, leaving the urn which, paradoxically, has a much higher economic value than its sacred contents.’