Italian authorities are worried that an exchange of wedding rings between two jailed mob bosses could signal a return to the bloody days of all-out war on the State.
Prison officers were shocked this week to find that Leoluca Bagarella, brother-in-law of ferocious Corleone don Toto' Riina, and Catania superboss Nitto Santapaola had left their rings for the other to find after a cell swap.
Mafia experts said the "informal marriage" could spell trouble.
Santapaola, who is believed to run the eastern Sicilian Mafia from his jail cell, failed to back Riina's murderous bomb campaign in the early 1990s, they noted.
Experts say his symbolic gesture to the Riina clan may mean a united Mafia is poised to return to the offensive after a non-aggression stance ordered by boss of bosses Bernardo Provenzano.
Provenzano, who had dodged Italian justice for over 40 years, was caught in a farm outside Corleone in April 2006, 13 years after his former co-chief Riina.
Despite an unwavering promptness to order hits against rivals, Provenzano never approved of the Riina-ordered murders of anti-Mafia judges like Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino - nor a subsequent bomb campaign that claimed several lives in Florence, Milan and Rome.
Santapaola may now have abandoned Provenzano's more cautious line, experts fear.
