Horse's head and pregnant cow used in 'barbaric' mafia threat in Sicily

Burned cars are seen the day after a bomb attack that killed judge Paolo Borsellino and his police guards in Palermo, July 20, 1992. (Tony Gentile/Reuters via CNN Newsource)

The discovery of a severed horse head, and a cow quartered with its bloodied dead calf on top, have rattled a Sicilian town, with authorities treating the incident as a mafia threat.

The dead animals were discovered on the property of a building contractor in the town of Altofonte, near Palermo, police told CNN.

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The gruesome scene was reminiscent of the 1972 film “The Godfather” where a character wakes up to find a decapitated head of a horse in his bed.

The contractor, who is not being named to protect him during the ongoing investigation, told police that he had not received any threats prior to the discovery of the dead livestock, who were kept on an adjacent property.

The construction and garbage industries remain the two most prominent mafia-linked business sectors in Sicily, according to a recent report from the Anti-Mafia Directorate.

The contractor often carried out construction work for the local municipality, which has worked hard to deny mafia-related firms from winning bids, but he had told police he had not been approached by any group demanding money or favors.

A police spokesperson told CNN the incident is being treated as a mafia intimidation tactic.

The horrific incident may be related to the recent release of 20 mafia members from local prisons, whose sentences expired, and who may be on a vengeance, according to the Anti-Mafia Directorate’s chief Maurizio de Lucia.

“We can’t let our guard down, the fight against the mafia just got more difficult with these men free,” he said in September.

The mayor of Altofonte, Angela De Lucia, said she was “petrified” when she heard the news. “I can’t comprehend such barbarity,” she told local media outlets.

“This act seems to take us back to the middle ages.”

A common intimidation tactic

The use of dead animals, more often dogs than horses, has precedence on the southern Italian island.

It is a tactic that has been used by the notorious Sicilian Cosa Nostra crime syndicate for decades. Several similar incidents involving the decapitated heads of animals have been reported by local business people in Sicily: In 2023, a severed pig’s head was found hanging at local police station while a local business contractor found the severed head of one of his goats on his garden gate.

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Organized crime in Sicily has been a problem since the 19th century when the Cosa Nostra was first identified. Violence peaked in 1992 when two anti-mafia judges, Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone, were assassinated in separate roadside bombs.

More recently, Cosa Nostra, working in conjunction with the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta syndicate, have turned away from violence and focused more on white collar crimes, infiltrating local governments, and industries like construction and sanitation.

But extortion and demanding protection money or “pizzo” remains a staple for these groups.

In a 2023 criminal case, 31 people were convicted of abetting local mobsters by lying about paying protection money to the group, which served to protect them, according to the judge’s sentencing document.

In 2023, Matteo Messina Denaro, a Sicilan Cosa Nostra mafia boss who had been on the run for 30 years was captured while seeking cancer treatment in Palermo, underscoring the level of complicity that continues to protect and enable criminal enterprises.