Caltanisetta, Sicily - The sister of a jailed top mafia boss was among 24 people arrested Monday in Sicily as police swooped on suspected Cosa Nostra-controlled cement works and gambling halls.

The 72-year-old Maria Stella Madonia allegedly served as a go-between for her brother, top mafioso don Giuseppe "Piddu" Madonia who is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison, the ANSA news agency said.

The businesses, reportedly valued at some 4 million euros (5.3 million dollars), and allegedly run by the jailed boss with the help of his sister and other relatives, are mostly situated in the central Sicilian city of Caltanisetta and the island's souther port of Gela.

Palermo, Sicily - A Sicilian mafia boss caught in a massive police sweep against "Cosa Nostra" has been found hanged in a prison cell just hours after his arrest.

The 52-year-old Gaetano Lo Presti was among more than 90 mafiosi nabbed during police raids in Sicily and Tuscany on Tuesday.

An investigation was underway Wednesday on how Lo Presti managed to commit what appears to have been a suicide in Palermo's Pagliarelli prison late on Tueday night, officials said.

Gela, Sicily  - An ancient Greek ship returned to surface Monday some 2,500 years after it sank in the Mediterranean Sea and two decades after its wreck was discovered by divers off Sicily.

Ship sirens wailed and Italian culture officials and other onlookers applauded as a crane lifted from the waters what remains of the 21-metre-long wooden vessel, the ANSA news agency reported.

The ship's 11-metre-long keel and part of the stern, both of which were preserved as the vessel lay buried for 25 centuries under clay below the sea floor, are to be transported to the Sicilian port of Gela.

Palermo, Sicily - An Italian Navy patrol boat recovered Friday the bodies