10/07/2026

The case is being investigated by the Rome Prosecutor's Office, which is proceeding on charges of theft and possession for the purpose of dealing, with the involvement of the Carabinieri's NAS (Nuclei Antisofisticazioni e Sanità), inspectors from the Ministry of Health, and the Lazio Region. There was no break-in or forced entry: whoever took the doses had normal access to the premises, a detail that points toward the theory of an inside job carried out to order. Among the investigative leads, the press has flagged illegal aesthetic clinics as the most pursued angle, but the theory of clandestine horse races has also emerged.

This theory was raised by the president of the Italian Society of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care (Siaarti), Elena Bignami, in comments to Adnkronos: she described the episode as a theft that was likely carried out to order and, among the possible scenarios, raised the use of the drug as an analgesic in illegal races — to control pain and force the animal to run despite trauma and injuries. "I have no evidence to confirm it, but it is certainly a possibility," she said.

The mechanism that theory points to is far from hypothetical. In the clandestine circuit, doping is a standard operating condition. Horses used in these races are often absent from the national equine registry and kept in unlicensed stables: without a stable code, no veterinary prescription can be issued, which shuts them out of any legal pharmaceutical supply channel. Clandestine stables therefore source from a black market covering the full range of products — from dewormers to antibiotics — drawing also on expired medications or drugs stolen from wholesalers, pharmacies and hospitals, including products meant for human use. That the fentanyl stolen from the Ospedale Israelitico could end up in that circuit is therefore not a far-fetched hypothesis.

The pattern of use works like this: a horse no longer fit to race is loaded up with analgesics for one last run. Fentanyl, among the most potent opioids available, wipes out any perception of pain even in the presence of severe tendon injuries, microfractures, or other trauma. When the animal collapses, it is made to disappear or abandoned on the spot. It isn't registered, it has no papers: it doesn't exist.

(foto: Polizia, Wikimedia - Lê Hu?nh B?, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)