After 30-years of federal- and state-level criminal investigation, officials arrested over 120 alleged members of the East Coast organized crime syndicate, or Mafia, last week. The arrests and investigation comprised the largest arrest of mobsters coordinated by the FBI.
According to the Washington Post, 800 members of several law enforcement agencies at all levels conducted the early morning raids in New York, New Jersey, and New England. Alleged mob crimes covered by the arrests spanned all the way back to the early 1980s. Charges included extortion, racketeering, loan-sharking, and murder; the sweeping arrests nabbed supposed high-ranking members of La Cosa Nostra with titles “consigliere,” “boss,” and “underboss.”
FBI assistant director Janice Fedarcyk stated, “The notion that today’s mob families are more genteel and less violent than in the past is put to lie by the charges contained in the indictments unsealed today. Even more of a myth is the notion that the mob is a thing of the past, that La Cosa Nostra is a shadow of its former self.”
The raids were part of a series of arrests that have been conducted in recent years, positive tactics utilized to cripple syndicate crime organizations and highlight law enforcement’s activity. Charges were based on hundreds of hours of investigation, taped conversations, and recorded video footage collected over the years.
The men have all been separated from one another for interview and interrogation.
The arrests encompassed a lot of supposed “made men,” the organizers behind well-known “mob family” names, including Gambino and Colombo. While the arrests garnered headlines and may have hurt the organization for the present and near-future, the organization of syndicated crime families will adapt and return according to mafia experts.
