Italian and US authorities on Thursday arrested dozens of organized crime suspects in New York and Naples in a massive, coordinated crackdown against the mafia with trans- Atlantic links, according to DPA. The morning raids in New York represented one of the largest sweeps against the New York mafia ever, with up to 59 suspects detained. Much of the focus was on the Gambino family, whose members were charged with eight murders, racketeering, extortion in the construction industry, drug trafficking, securities fraud and theft of union benefits, New York State's Attorney Andrew Cuomo said at a press conference in New York. An informant who penetrated the Gambino family over a three-year period provided the evidence of "hundreds of hours of recorded conversations," federal attorney Benton Campbell said. A major figure arrested in New York was Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, 43, whose parents were Sicilian and who grew up in New York to become one of the most important and most ambitious mafia bosses in the Gambino clan. In Italy, Vincenzo Licciardi, 42, a boss of the Camorra - the Naples version of the mafia - whose name has been on the country's top 30 most wanted criminals since 2004, was arrested. The crime boss was sentenced in absentia to 14 years in jail last year for his criminal activities. Armed with more than 80 arrest warrants - 62 in the US and 20 in Italy - authorities were still looking for suspects in the afternoon in New York and Sicily, officials said. Italy's chief national anti-Mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso said elusive linkages between the mob families emerged from the discovery of scraps of paper - or pizzini - on which mobsters wrote messages to each other.
