Mass arrests in anti-Mafia sweep in US, Italy

US authorities arrested 54 organised crime suspects yesterday, including three they considered high-ranking members of the Gambino crime family, officials said.

More arrests were made in Italy in a trans-Atlantic operation targeting some of the most-wanted Mafia suspects in both countries.

In New York, charges were being filed against 62 people including the street boss, the under boss and the consigliere of the Gambino family - the three highest-ranking members not already in prison - a US law enforcement official said.

Fifty-four were arrested early yesterday, mostly in the New York area, on accusations including murder, racketeering, extortion, loan-sharking and labour violations including pension fund embezzlement, the official said.

More than 300 Italian police were mobilised, mostly in Sicily, in an operation code-named Old Bridge, arresting several members of what they called the most important Mafia families. Magistrates had signed 29 arrest warrants and more suspects were being sought.

"Those arrested are high-level members of the most important Mafia families linked to the head of Cosa Nostra, Salvatore Lo Piccolo," a police statement said.

Mr Lo Piccolo was arrested on November 5 in Sicily. He had become the new "boss of bosses" after the arrest in 2006 of Bernardo Provenzano, who had been on the run for 43 years.

In what appeared to be a separate operation in Naples, police arrested a suspected leading figure of that southern city's criminal underworld yesterday.

Vincenzo Licciardi, 42, purportedly a boss of the Camorra crime group, was arrested in a Naples suburb. He had been on the run since 2004 and was one of Italy's 30 most wanted criminals, police said.

He is linked to the Secondigliano clan, part of the fragmented Camorra whose criminal activities include illegal waste disposal, one of the causes of an emergency in Naples where refuse collection has all but collapsed.

The Camorra is thought to be much less unified in structure than the Sicilian Mafia, made up of rival clans that often clash violently in turf wars.