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Dozens Arrested In International Effort To Stop Mafia

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By TOM HAYS, The Associated Press

Published: February 8, 2008

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 decimated by prosecutions since Gotti's fall.

The U.S. 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," New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said. "We like to think that it's a vestige of the past. It's not."

Most of the suspects were in custody after 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. His attorney could not be reached for comment.

Joseph Corozzo, accused of being a high-level Gambino adviser, pleaded not guilty to multiple racketeering counts including cocaine trafficking.

"He's never been involved in drugs," his attorney and son, Joseph Corozzo Jr., said outside court.

Among the 29 people arrested or sought in Italy were members of clans linked to Salvatore Lo Piccolo, the Sicilian Mafia boss arrested in November, Italian officials said.

"We have cut short a dangerous connection that would have been the basis for new illegal trafficking," Palermo Prosecutor Francesco Messineo said.

When Lo Piccolo was arrested, investigators warned that as part of his attempt to become the Cosa Nostra's next "boss of bosses," he had been working to mend ties with U.S.-Italian clans such as the Gambinos and the Inzerillos. Those relations were wrecked during Sicily's internal Mafia war of the 1980s.

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.

The federal indictment also alleges that Gambino associates extorted people in the construction industry, embezzled from labor unions and engaged in loansharking and bookmaking.

Three of the seven slayings 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.

The federal grand jury accused Charles Carneglia, a reputed Gambino soldier, with involvement in five killings over three decades, including that of Albert Gelb, a state court officer who was gunned down in 1976. Carneglia was jailed without bail after pleading not guilty Thursday.

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