The FBI launched its biggest crackdown ever on the New York area’s infamous La Cosa Nostra organised crime network, in a massive roundup before daybreak yesterday of 127 alleged mafia members and associates.
“Today’s arrests and charges mark an important step forward in disrupting La Cosa Nostra’s illegal activities,” US Attorney General Eric Holder said at a press conference in Brooklyn.
Holder called the sweep “the largest single-day operation” against the infamous organised crime network.
Those detained included 91 members and associates of seven organised crime families throughout New York and the New England area, who faced charges ranging from drug dealing to murder.
Officials said the wave of arrests early yesterday was over by 8 a.m.
Federal officials said other charges included murder, loansharking, arson, drugs, extortion, robbery, labour racketeering.
“The indictments charge leaders of these criminal enterprises, as well as mid-level managers... and others alleged to be corrupt union officials,” said Holder, the top US law enforcement official, whose presence at the New York press conference underscored the significance of the crackdown.
Cosa Nostra families once infiltrated and controlled swathes of the US economy, with a longtime stronghold in and around New York.
The phenomenon took root nearly a century ago and remains an important factor in organised crime, but New York’s historic Five Families of Italian-American mobsters have seen a sharp decline in fortunes over the last decade as a result of court testimony from turncoats breaking the once impenetrable code of silence.
But although the Italian Mafia has lost some power, with ethnic-Russian, Mexican and Asian gangs moving in, it continues to loom large in the popular imagination thanks to classic movies such as The Godfather and the award-winning Sopranos series on cable television.
Despite the mystique, the organization’s aura of invincibility has long crumbled.
In 1991, the acting head of the Luchese family, Alphonse D’Arco, agreed to testify against his comrades. Then Salvatore Gravano testified against the Gambino family, leading to the imprisonment of John J. Gotti, previously known as the Teflon Don, because of his ability to escape prosecution.
However, a marathon effort to convict Mr Gotti’s son, John “Junior” Gotti, in 2009 spectacularly collapsed.
The Mafia scion walked free after a mistrial that marked the fourth time in five years prosecutors failed to pin charges on him.
The authorities subsequently said they were closing their case against Mr Gotti.