Italy
Mafia making millions from brutal horse races
July 5, 2007 - By Lorenzo Tondo and Malcolm Moore in Rome - via The Telegraph
The Mafia is making more than £500 million a year from racing horses illegally through the streets of Sicily, according to a jockey.
The races, in which the horses are frequently injured, are run over the hard asphalt or slippery cobbles of cities including Palermo, Catania and Siracuse.
The police seized a hippodrome full of horses, and 10,000 crates of performance-enhancing drugs, last year but managed to stop only seven out of an estimated 300 races.
Experts said the number of races this year would be far higher. Horse racing has long been a tradition in Sicily, but only recently has the Mafia seized control of the sport.
Gambling is illegal in Italy outside state-sanctioned shops.
The Mafia is making more than £500 million a year from racing horses illegally through the streets of Sicily, according to a jockey.
The races, in which the horses are frequently injured, are run over the hard asphalt or slippery cobbles of cities including Palermo, Catania and Siracuse.
The police seized a hippodrome full of horses, and 10,000 crates of performance-enhancing drugs, last year but managed to stop only seven out of an estimated 300 races.
Experts said the number of races this year would be far higher. Horse racing has long been a tradition in Sicily, but only recently has the Mafia seized control of the sport.
Gambling is illegal in Italy outside state-sanctioned shops.
Giuseppe, a 29-year-old jockey from Agrigento, who did not wish to divulge his real name, revealed the savage nature of the races, and the vast profits that flow from them.
Although he would not admit it, he is believed to be one of the Mafia's senior jockeys, having notched up over 150 races.
"They start at dawn. Or sometimes at night, by the light of car headlights. The streets are closed. No one can get through," he said. Residents are warned by mobsters not to step outside with threats of violence.
"The course is about 400 metres long, sometimes 500. They look for streets on an incline so that the horses don't slip. But it's asphalt, and every once in a while a mess happens.
"Asphalt isn't good for horses. It damages their tendons. And in order to ease the pain, [the organisers] drug them. But sometimes a horse has a bad fall and breaks some bones. Then the horse gets shot."
He said vets' fees were too expensive, and that "it is rare that a horse which has had an accident will ever run the same way again". Sometimes, angry punters stone the losing horse to death. A dead horse which had suffered a stoning was found on a beach near Catania recently.
More often the dead horses are butchered. Although horse meat is common in Italy, the meat from these particular horses is usually too full of drugs to be fit for human consumption. "They obviously do not bring it to the normal, local butcher shop," said Giuseppe. Instead it is sold illegally.
Profits from a race can sometimes be as high as £35,000. "They bet a ton of money," said Giuseppe.
"The jockeys get paid no matter how the race goes for them, but if they win they get a lot more, of course."
Italy's Anti-Vivisection League released a report last month on the races, saying the industry was "truly based on violence and exploitation". Ciro Troiano, 42, the head of the organisation's Zoomafia department, said: "We know that criminal organisations are behind the clandestine races; horse racing is one of their prize businesses."
Gery Palazzotto, the author of Fotofinish, a book on the subject of illegal racing in Sicily, said: "These races are quick events that are born at dawn on any particular day and which do not leave any traces. Once in a while the police are able to film them or stop them thanks to a tip from the public, but it is not enough. By now it is absolutely clear that Cosa Nostra is up to its neck in these races."
To read the article from 30th of April, 2011, that goes with the above picture, please click here!
April 18, 2013 - The National Observatory of Zoomafia LAV sent a detailed complaint to the Public Prosecutor of Termini Imerese (Palermo) and the Provincial Command of the Carabinieri in Palermo to denounce the conduct of systematic street racing of horses in "Contrada Sperone" of City of Altavilla Milicia.
Everything comes from numerous reports from citizens who, exasperated and worried, have informed the LAV also sending films made with mobile phones. According to these citizens were also made accurate reporting to local authorities, but to no avail. Anxiety, fear, distrust are the feelings that transpire from reports.
"From the numerous reports show that systematically, on the same days and times of the week, and in the same places you play real street racing of horses with the participation of many people, as if it were a normal thing, no one intervenes, and this can only strengthen the sense of impunity of those who organize and participate in the races - said Ciro Troiano, the head of the National Zoomafia the LAV that filed the complaint - why we sent a detailed complaint to the Prosecutor of Termini Imerese and Command Provincial Police of Palermo asking for an investigation and immediate control. "
According to reports arrive at the LAV in recent months, the participants arrive with cars and big bikes and horses, transported on trucks, are abused with shots on the sides and even a horse would have been shot down on the spot after an accident. The facts and circumstances contained in the reports are eligible to realize the combination of many people, art. 110 cp, in the offenses of cruelty to animals, Art. 544 ter and organization of competitions unauthorized between animals, art. 544quinquies cp, and these were the offenses alleged in the complaint.
A horse race on the road exposes the animals to the risk of injury due to the circuit, not in order, the absence of technical measures to prevent injury to the animals in danger of sliding on the asphalt, the stress suffered by ligaments when running not beaten track, the lack of side plates to protect the horses, excessive use of the whip, etc.. There is no doubt that an illegal horse race constitutes an event inherently dangerous, is proved by the fact that accidents often occur, even death.
"It should also clarify the nature of the association that manages these activities if it is mere illegality, or, instead, a group from the ambitions of the most dangerous criminals and worrying," says Ciro Troiano.
According to the National Observatory of the LAV Zoomafia the street racing of horses are one of the areas of interest of organized crime, especially in Sicily and southern Italy, with a huge turnover.
NOTE: The above article was translated online using Google Translator. Click here, to read the original article in Italian.