NEW YORK — Authorities arrested dozens of people Thursday in a sweeping Mafia takedown aimed at closing the book on decades-old gangland killings and other crimes and knocking out what’s left of the once-mighty Gambino family.
A federal indictment in Brooklyn named 62 people, including the three highest-ranking members of the Gambino clan and the brother and nephew of the late John Gotti, the notorious boss who ran the family in its heyday. State prosecutors separately charged 26 others with running a gambling ring that took nearly $10 million in bets on professional and college sports.
The New York raids coincided with an Italian operation, code-named “Old Bridge” and centered on the Sicilian capital of Palermo, targeting Mafia figures who were strengthening contacts between mob groups in Italy and the United States.
Authorities said the investigations, though technically unconnected, signaled an international attempt to disrupt Sicilian ties to the Gambino family, which has been gutted by prosecutions since Gotti’s fall.
The investigation ensnared whatever members of the Gambinos hierarchy were still at liberty and will bring “closure to crimes from the past,” U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell said, including the slaying of a court officer, drug trafficking, robberies, extortion at a failed NASCAR track and other crimes dating to the 1970s.
The probe’s scope shows the mob “still exists in the city and the state of New York,” said New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. “We like to think that it’s a vestige of the past. It’s not.”
Most of the suspects were in custody following a series of raids Thursday, including the reputed acting boss of the Gambino family, John “Jackie the Nose” D’Amico, who is accused of playing a lead role in a broad racketeering conspiracy.
Most of the U.S. charges allege crimes from the era when the Gambino family was run by Paul Castellano, who was murdered in 1985. Other charges involve drug dealing, credit fraud conspiracies and theft of union benefits within the past few years.
Three of the seven murders alleged in the indictment involved victims who weren’t criminals.
“It’s a fallacy to think organized crime murders occur within the closed shop,” said Mark Mershon, head of the FBI’s New York office.
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