The son of jailed Catania superboss Benedetto (Nitto) Santapaola was arrested with dozens of other gangsters Tuesday in the latest in a string of Italian police coups.
Vincenzo Santapaola, 38, had been in and out of jail since 1992 on various charges including the murder of anti-Mafia journalist Giuseppe Fava.
He now faces charges of trying to reorganise his father's business.
He was arrested along with 37 other Catania gangsters and three wives of clan bosses in a huge operation that swept through the eastern Sicilian city.
More than 20 mafiosi already jailed for other offences received fresh warrants in the operation, which police said had uncovered worrying new links with the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria and Cosa Nostra in Palermo.
The jailed mobsters included a Santapaola hitman who killed a boss in jail and ate his liver.
Police found hidden weapons, drugs and an accounts book listing revenue from protection rackets and payments to affiliates.
The operation shed light on 16 robberies, some of them committed outside of Sicily; six protection rackets; and a number of plans to claim major industrial projects which police said they were not at liberty to talk about.
The sweep follows the arrest in April 2006 of Cosa Nostra boss of bosses Bernardo Provenzano and last month's arrest of Provenzano's presumed heir Salvatore Lo Piccolo.
Provenzano, 74, was nabbed on a sheep farm near Corleone after 42 years in hiding.
Lo Piccolo, 65, was caught in the countryside near Palermo after 24 years on the run.
Five of Lo Piccolo's top men have been caught since his November 5 arrest.
''We're taking the clans apart, piece by piece,'' said Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, claiming that a new alliance between the State and Sicilian society was shaking off Mob influence.
He said a beefed-up presence of the State in Sicily ''is changing the climate and eradicating the Mafia''.
''This alliance is producing very concrete results. Let the bosses have no illusions. We will get them, one by one''.
The head of a Palermo anti-racket association, Costantino Garraffa, said ''The war against the Mafia is a long war but today we can say that victory is closer''.
Garraffa, a centre-left Senator, called Tuesday's operation ''an extraordinary success''.
A member of the parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, Carlo Vizzini, said ''the action of investigators and police shows it is possible to beat the Mafia''.
Vizzini, who is also an envoy on transnational organised crime for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged political parties to rid themselves of members with Mafia links.
Italy's powerful industrialists' federation Confindustria recently issued a similar plea, calling for the expulsion of members who pay protection money.
There have been dozens of arrests linked to the Santapaola clan since Nitto, 79, was caught in May 1993 after ten years on the run.
The superboss is accused of being part of the cupola (governing body) which ordered the most notorious Mafia crimes of recent years including the 1992 murders of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and a summer 1993 wave of bombings.
The head of the cupola at the time was Provenzano's predecessor Salvatore (Toto') Riina, jailed since 1993.
