FBI agents arrested around 100 alleged mafia members in and around New York early Thursday in a massive crackdown on the region's infamous Cosa Nostra network, authorities said. "It was very broad scope," New York federal court spokesman Robert Nardoza told AFP. The arrests were made throughout New York and the New England area, with charges ranging from drug dealing to murder.
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. In a sign of the importance being given to arrests, Attorney General Eric Holder and the assistant director of the FBI in New York, Janice Fedarcyk, were to give a press conference in Brooklyn.
Officials would give only the briefest details of the take-down. However, the New York Times, quoting unnamed sources, called it "the largest such sweep of organised crime figures ever conducted by federal authorities." According to the report, some suspects were charged with murders, others with racketeering, extortion, loan-sharking, gambling and labour-racketeering in the construction and dock workers' industries. The wave of arrests began early and was over by 8:00 am (1300 GMT), the Times reported.
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