Police in Sicily revealed the content of private conversations between alleged members of Cosa Nostra after apprehending nearly 150 suspects in dawn raids on Tuesday.

It was the biggest operation against Cosa Nostra since the 1980s, with warrants issued against 183 people, including 36 who were already imprisoned, The Times reports.

Giancarlo Romano, an alleged mafia capo, was recorded on a tapped phone complaining about new recruits’ lack of loyalty, saying: “Today, they arrest someone and he becomes a turncoat.”

He was recorded advising a young associate to study the Freemasons because they “occupy the most important jobs” and to watch Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.

Another mafia boss was recorded reproaching a youngster who was failing to live up to mafia family values: “You are married to this wife and you stay with her all your life.”

Italian authorities are cracking down on Cosa Nostra in a bid to prevent it from re-establishing the cupola — a powerful governing body which once exerted immense power in Sicily.