A businessman found a horse’s severed head when he climbed into the cab of a bulldozer, like a scene from the Mafia movie ‘The Godfather’
It was one of a series of bloody warnings seemingly left by mobsters on a his property in Altofonte, a village in a valley on the outskirts of Palermo.
They also slaughtered a pregnant cow, removed the calf, quartered it, and place it on its mother’s carcass in the man’s courtyard, police in Sicily – known as a Mafia stronghold – revealed.
It was left in a courtyard belonging to a businessman, who is well-known in the local community and carries out building work for local councils.
He said he has received previous threats and warnings, which police believe is because he refused to pay protection money or to comply with other Mafia demands, The Guardian reported.
Altofonte mayor Angela De Luca said: ‘I was petrified. I can’t comprehend such barbarity.
‘I would like to express my solidarity and that of my colleagues to the businessman who is a trusted member of the local community.
‘Our entire community is deeply disturbed by an act that seems to take us back to the Middle Ages, for its unacceptable methods, carried out not by simple criminals but by real barbarians.
‘I rely on the police forces who are working and will continue to work to understand what happened and to identify the perpetrators of this terrible act, carried out by people who were capable of going this far.’
The discovery is reminiscent of the 1972 classic ‘The Godfather’, starring Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, in which a horse’s head was placed in the bed of film producer Jack Woltz after he refused to give Corleone’s grandson a role.
But it also harks back to an era of protection rackets, trafficking, gambling, bombings and murder from the heyday of the Cosa Nostra.
Popularly known as the Sicilian Mafia, it emerged in the 1800s and spread to the USA in the wake of government crackdowns in Italy.
Once the dominant force extorting businessmen in agriculture and construction, it has since lost the title of Italy’s most powerful criminal organisation.
‘We thought we had left this type of intimidation behind us’, said Giuseppe Puccio, president of the construction industry employers association Ance Palermo.
‘Instead we have to note that this is not the case. We express all our solidarity and closeness to the contractor and his family.’
Edy Tamajo, head of Productive Activities in the Sicilian government, said: ‘This act of unheard-of cruelty represents a mafia mentality that must be eradicated.
‘It is essential that the Carabinieri and the judiciary shed full light on this episode and bring those responsible to justice.
‘These acts of violence must be addressed not only with the action of the police, but also with a strong commitment to spreading the culture of legality in schools, so that future generations can grow up free from this mentality.’
A police spokesperson said they are reviewing CCTV and speaking to the businessman.
Similar warnings have occurred in Sicily in recent years, despite the mafia’s reduced power.
A goat’s head was found in front of a construction entrepreneur’s home in Palermo last May.
The head of a pig was hung on a police station’s gate in the province of Messina, in the island’s northeast, last year.
In 2017, a decapitated bird was found in front of a Palermo school named after anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, who was assassinated in a 1992 bombing that also killed his wife and three police escorts.
The Cosa Nostra had tunnelled beneath a highway, packing it with explosives, which they then detonated as the judge drove over.
A statue of Falcone outside the school was also beheaded earlier in 2017.
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