Police carrying out a drugs raid on a cannabis farm in southern Italy have seized a stash of 235 frozen dormice - said to be a mafia delicacy. After discovering more than 700 cannabis plants, police searched outbuildings and found cages of dormice and freezers filled with carcasses. Wildlife groups say baked dormice are served to honour high-ranking gangsters at banquets.

'Ndrangheta and dormice hunting, the meaning of an ancestral rite. Here is where it is practiced in Calabria
October 16, 2021
The Lav estimates that in the municipality of Guardavalle alone 20 thousand animals are captured a year, sold for 5 euros each

Dormouse hunting has distant origins and has ancestral meanings in the 'Ndrangheta culture . The use of eating it, boiled in sauce or roasted, dates back to the Roman legionaries, who carried with them containers in which they raised rodents to have food available for times of need.
In the province of Reggio , where the carabinieri seized 200 frozen animals, the consumption of the dormouse is a sort of celebration of a symbol of power. Bringing dishes based on dormice to meetings organized to exchange favors means binding others with a pact that is difficult to escape. Several times in the interceptions of the Locride underworld there is talk of pacifying dinners based on dormice between opposing gangs.
Dormouse hunting is widespread throughout Calabria: in Cosentino on the Ionian side ( Rossano ), on the Sila plateau ( San Giovanni in Fiore ) and on the Tyrrhenian side ( Orsomarso ). In the province of Crotone in the area of Castelsilano (Sila Piccola). But it is in the "Serre", where the provinces of Catanzaro, Vibo Valentia and Reggio Calabria meet, that the most rooted tradition is found, in the territory of Guardavalle , Santa Cristina dello Ionio , Nardodipace , Serra San Bruno , Stilo and Bivongi . Lav estimates that only in the municipality of Guardavalle 20 thousand animals are captured a year, sold for 5 euros each.