US authorities arrested 54 organized crime suspects this afternoon including three they considered high-ranking members of the Gambino crime family, officials said.
More arrests were made in Italy in a transatlantic operation targeting some of the most-wanted Mafia suspects in both countries.
In New York, charges were being filed against 62 people including the street boss, the under boss and the consigliere of the Gambino family - the three highest-ranking members not already in prison - a US law enforcement official said.
Fifty-four were arrested early day, mostly in the New York area, on accusations including murder, racketeering, extortion, loan-sharking and labor violations including pension fund embezzlement, the official said.
The US official asked not to be identified because the US Attorney's office in Brooklyn was to announce the arrests later today. The Italian Interior Ministry planned a news conference at the same time.
More than 300 Italian police were mobilized, mostly in Sicily, in an operation code-named "Old Bridge," arresting several members of what they called the most important Mafia families. Magistrates had signed 29 arrest warrants and more suspects were being sought.
"Those arrested are high-level members of the most important Mafia families linked to the head of Cosa Nostra, Salvatore Lo Piccolo," a police statement said.
Lo Piccolo was arrested on November 5th in Sicily. He had become the new "boss of bosses" after the arrest in 2006 of Bernardo Provenzano, who had been on the run for 43 years.
Caretaker Prime Minister Romano Prodi praised what he called a "brilliant operation against organized crime."
In what appeared to be a separate operation in Naples, police arrested a suspected leading figure of that southern city's criminal underworld today.
Vincenzo Licciardi (42) purportedly a boss of the Camorra crime group, was arrested in a Naples suburb. He had been on the run since 2004 and was one of Italy's 30 most wanted criminals, police said.