Terror speaks in many tongues, but the mafia—they’re fluent
in every dialect of dread.
Don’t go thinking physical violence is all they’re about. No
sir. The real pros, they work the mind first. It’s like my daddy used to say:
why break a man’s legs when you can break his spirit? The ability to dominate
someone’s thoughts—to colonize the dark corners of their mind—that’s power that
goes beyond muscle and guns.
Hell, according to what I read in The Local, it’s how
the Italian mobsters managed to keep ISIS from gaining a foothold in their
territory. When you can suffocate a movement from within, make it die gasping…
well, that’s a special kind of control. Like cancer. (I should know—I’ve
written about both cancer and control enough times to recognize their
handiwork.)
The ‘Ndrangheta stalking through Calabria. The Neapolitan
Camorra slithering through Campania. The Cosa Nostra infesting Sicily like rats
in the walls. These aren’t just criminal organizations—they’re architects of
fear, master builders constructing cathedrals of terror in the minds of anyone
who crosses them.
For these professionals, fear isn’t just a tool—it’s an art
form.
---
You want to know how the mafia sends a message? I’ll tell
you. But I warn you, this ain’t for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.
According to Sicilianmagpie (and trust me, these
fellas know what they’re talking about), when the mafia wants to make a point,
they tend to favor carcasses. Severed heads, particularly. Horse heads. Pig
heads. The kind of thing that speaks volumes without saying a word.
Picture this: You’re some poor bastard who’s crossed the
Family. Maybe you refused to pay protection money. Maybe you talked to the
wrong cop. Hell, maybe you just looked at somebody funny. One morning, you open
your front door, ready to collect the paper, when you spot it—a decaying,
putrid head impaled on your gate. Flies buzzing around it like tiny black storm
clouds, the stench hitting you like a physical blow.
The message couldn’t be clearer if it came with a formal
letterhead.
Just this past November—November 23, 2024, to be exact—CNN
World investigated a particularly gruesome discovery in Altofonte. A horse’s
head. Dismembered parts of a pregnant cow. The calling card of the Sicilian
mafia, laid out for all to see.
Reminds me of that scene in The Godfather. You know
the one. Jack Woltz, that hotshot Hollywood producer, wakes up to something
warm and wet soaking his sheets. Pulls back the covers and finds his
million-dollar racehorse Khartoum’s severed head nestled there, blood soaking
into Egyptian cotton, those dead eyes staring back at him.
Why? Because he told Don Corleone “no.” And the mafia—the
real mafia, not just the movie version—they don’t take no for an answer. Their
pride runs deeper than any ocean. Cross them, and they’ll go to lengths that
would make the devil himself whistle in admiration.
When they send you a horse’s head, they’re not just
threatening you. They’re telling you that your honor means nothing to them.
That they’ve trampled it into the dirt. It’s a declaration of war written in
blood and rot.
Today it’s a horse’s head. Tomorrow? Well, tomorrow it might
be yours, gift-wrapped and delivered to your loved ones.
And don’t go thinking this is just an Italian thing.
Criminal syndicates worldwide speak this same grisly language.
Even in Indonesia, terror has its own local dialect.
---
November 16, 1983. 3:00 AM.
Peter Apollonius Rohi was probably dreaming of something
pleasant—his wife’s smile, perhaps, or the satisfaction of a well-written
article. The veteran journalist had no way of knowing that this particular
morning would sear itself into his memory like a brand on bare skin.
A package arrived. No, not flowers. Not a birthday gift
(though his 41st birthday had passed just two days earlier). Inside the package
was a human head.
Let me say that again, just so it sinks in: a human head.
The ultimate warning.
Peter was the executive editor of Suara Indonesia at
the time, a Malang-based subsidiary of Sinar Harapan. On his Facebook
page years later, he described how he and his team reported the incident to
Amnesty International, calling it what it was: state oppression against press
freedom.
The threat didn’t materialize out of thin air. Peter had
been compiling reports on the mysterious shooter operation—petrus, they
called it. President Soeharto’s heavy hand coming down like a hammer on what he
deemed “rampant crime.” A brutal “shock therapy” that left corpses scattered
throughout Indonesia like fallen leaves after an autumn storm.
Along the Brantas River, sacks swollen with bodies bobbed in
the current. In the ravines of Bondowoso and at Piket Nol in South Semeru,
corpses lay where they fell, many without names, without identities, without
anyone to claim them or mourn them.
Not all were criminals. Peter exposed how Johny Mangi, a
national boxing champion, was mysteriously shot dead on a bridge near Widodaren
Street in Malang. Early morning, May 1, 1983. The official story? Russian
roulette. An accident. But Peter and Tempo magazine smelled something
rotten in the state of Indonesia—reports suggested Johny had been executed by
two figures who appeared on the bridge like ghosts in the mist.
The severed head delivered to Peter made the front page of Suara
Indonesia on November 17, 1983: “Placed Right at the Entrance: ‘SI’
Editorial Office Sent a Package Containing a Human Head.”
Martha Meyer from Amnesty International in the Netherlands
tried to extract Peter from Indonesia, arranging for him to take a “study
mission” to the U.S. A thin disguise for what it really was: an escape route.
But Peter refused. He planted his feet firmly in Indonesian
soil and kept writing until Soeharto finally called off the dogs of petrus.
Some men, you see, cannot be terrorized. Some men stand tall
even when the shadow of death falls across their doorstep.
---
Terror doesn’t always respect grief. Sometimes it feeds on
it.
Suciwati had barely begun to process the murder of her
husband, Munir Said Thalib—a human rights activist poisoned mid-flight on
Garuda Indonesia Flight GA-974—when the next blow came.
November 20, 2004. 10:30 AM.
A dead chicken arrived at her home in Bekasi. Not just
dead—mutilated. Its head severed. Legs cut off. Internal organs rotting inside
styrofoam.
And a note, like something straight out of a horror novel:
DO NOT INVOLVE THE MILITARY IN MUNIR’S DEATH. DO YOU WANT TO END UP LIKE THIS?
The ink might as well have been blood.
A second package, identical to the first, was delivered to Imparsial, the human rights organization where Munir had worked. A chorus of death, singing the same terrible song.
But fear can backfire. Instead of cowering, Munir’s circle pushed harder for justice, convinced that his assassination was political—an extrajudicial killing, as Amnesty International Indonesia and WatchDoc would later confirm in their documentary.
---
These aren’t ancient history, folks. The language of terror remains fluent in the mouths of those who speak it.
August 8, 2024. The North Jakarta General Elections Commission office. A headless chicken in a black plastic bag, accompanied by a note:
“Severe warning to ABIE MAHARULLAH MADUGIRI. Do not mess around, or your family will pay the price. Remember this and take it seriously.”
CCTV caught two men on a motorcycle tossing the bag over the fence. One wore an online motorcycle taxi jacket—the perfect anonymous uniform in Jakarta’s sea of delivery drivers. They vanished into the city like smoke, faces unknown, motives clear as crystal.
And just this past week—March 19, 2025—the Tempo media group’s office on Palmerah Barat Street received their own grisly delivery. A severed pig’s head, ears removed, wrapped in plastic and styrofoam, the stench of death clinging to it like a second skin. The package was addressed to “Fransisca Rosana (Cica)”—the political journalist who hosts the Bocor Alus Politik podcast.
Four days later, another package for Tempo. Six decapitated rats in a floral gift box, tossed over the fence at 2:11 AM like some perverse birthday present.
Tempo Editor-in-Chief Setri Yasra put it plainly: these weren’t isolated incidents. They were part of a growing wave of threats against journalists, a rising tide of intimidation that included messages from the Instagram account @derrynoah just days before.
---
Fear is a language that doesn’t need translation. A severed head speaks volumes in any tongue. A dead animal on your doorstep tells a story everyone understands.
But here’s the thing about terror—it only works if you let it. The true power lies not with those who send the message, but with those who receive it.
Some, like Peter Rohi and Suciwati, refuse to be silenced. They stand their ground, even as the darkness gathers around them.
Others… well, others aren’t so lucky. They let the fear in, let it take root and grow until it chokes out everything else. Until they’re paralyzed by what might happen, by what could be waiting for them when they open their door in the morning.
And in that paralysis, the senders of these grisly messages find their victory.
The question is: which one are you?
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