Italian authorities suspect that the mafia is using cats as incendiary devices. The animals have rags soaked in petrol tied to their tails, are set alight, and then released into the fields—where they run around spreading the fire as they burn to death.
The discovery is so macabre that it is difficult to comprehend. As wildfires rage across southern Italy—in Sicily, Calabria, and Sardinia—the civil protection authorities in Calabria have found cats with combustible rags tied around their tails.
“The cats were released into the fields, ran around, and spread the fire,” said Domenico Costarella, Director-General of the Regional Civil Protection Authority of Calabria (Protezione Civile della Regione Calabria), in a video statement on social media.
The animals burned alive. According to Italian media, the cats died in the very flames they had been forced to spread.
Candles and Molotov cocktails
The cats are only one part of a broader discovery. Costarella says the civil protection authorities have uncovered a range of evidence pointing to systematic, premeditated arson.
Investigators found delayed ignition devices: candles placed on top of rags soaked in flammable liquid. After a time delay, the candles ignited the rags, which developed into full-scale wildfires—long after the perpetrator had left the scene. In addition, empty Molotov cocktails were found scattered across the terrain.
“We have found delayed ignition devices created by a mind that is not merely malicious, but what I would call criminal,” Costarella said.
“These are inhumane acts. Unfortunately, man is his own worst enemy.”
Firefighters are still battling the blazes around Pollino National Park. Italy’s public broadcaster RAI reported that the fire service carried out more than 160 firefighting operations in the area within a 24-hour period.
Costarella did not say whether the civil protection authority’s findings have been confirmed through the police or public prosecutor’s investigation. The Italian authorities state that the investigation is ongoing.
Animal welfare groups demand answers
The Italian animal welfare organisation AIDAA has filed a criminal complaint and is offering a reward of €1,000 to anyone who provides information leading to the identification and conviction of those responsible. The organisation LNDC Animal Protection has also filed a complaint against person or persons unknown.
The revelations have provoked strong reactions in Calabria, where wildfires have repeatedly flared up throughout the summer.
An old mafia method
This is not the first time cats have been used as living incendiary devices in southern Italy. In 2016, fires broke out in a national park outside Naples, where cats were set alight and used to spread the flames, according to CNN.
The Italian politician Giuseppe Antoci claimed at the time, in an interview with the newspaper Corriere della Sera, that the mafia was responsible. The animals are used because they are impossible to trace. They leave neither fingerprints nor witnesses behind.
And the motive is coldly economic. Lauren Pearson of the University of California told CNN that it is well documented that mafia groups deliberately set fire to areas in order to gain control of territory. After the fires, they buy up the burned-out properties at low prices.
Sergio Nazzaro, a journalist and former spokesman for Italy’s Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, describes an entire system: the mafia exploits crises through front companies—from the labourers who set the fires to those who issue building permits for the burned land.