FBI Arrests More Than 100 Mobsters
The New York Times reports:
The criminal accusations spanned several states and several decades, encompassing figures from seven mob families, and led to the arrest of nearly 125 people on federal charges on Thursday.
There were murders, including a double homicide over a spilled drink in a Queens bar. There were the more run-of-the-mill activities associated with organized crime: racketeering, extortion, loan-sharking, money laundering, gambling and the like.
There were even some names from mob lore, including Luigi Manocchio, 83, the former boss of New England’s Patriarca crime family, who was said to have dressed in women’s clothing to avoid capture decades ago. He was arrested in Florida, accused of another mob standby: shaking down strip clubs, in Providence, R.I.
The charges were included in 16 indictments handed up in federal courts in four jurisdictions. Taken together, they amounted to what federal officials called the “largest mob roundup in F.B.I. history.”
The indictments were announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who appeared at a news conference on Thursday morning in Brooklyn.
For the attorney general, it was an opportunity to preside over the kind of law enforcement operation that was once the core mission of the Justice Department, but that has been largely overshadowed during his tenure by far more ambiguous issues inherited from the Bush administration. Mr. Holder spoke of the “unprecedented scope and cooperation” in the investigation, but questions were also raised by the diffuse nature of the indictments, which involved myriad unrelated criminal activity.
The sweep began before dawn, with 800 federal agents and state and local investigators fanning out across the region. The targets, officials said, ran the gamut from what they called small-time bookmakers and shakedown artists to mob middle managers and the entire current leadership of the Colombo crime family, as well as two seniorGambino family figures. Prosecutors said 34 made members of New York’s five crime families — Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Luchese — and crime families in New Jersey and New England were among those arrested.
By taking out the leadership of the Colombos and charging large numbers of reputed crime figures from the other families, the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors hoped the case would have a significant impact. But at the same time, officials acknowledged that the mob had shown itself to be remarkably resilient.
“Arresting and convicting the hierarchies of the five families several times over has not eradicated the problem,” said Janice K. Fedarcyk, the head of the New York F.B.I. office, calling it a “a myth” that the mob is a thing of the past.
