FBI Takes Down Over 50 Members of Gambino Crime Family

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is in the process of taking down more than 50 members of the Gambino crime family Thursday for various criminal charges that will further cripple the Mafia in America.

The operation, code-named "Old Bridge," was focused on New York and the Sicilian capital of Palermo, targeting Mafia figures that were strengthening contacts between mob groups in Italy and the United States.

A federal grand jury in New York also accused 62 people of ties to the Gambino crime family and offenses including murders, drug trafficking, robberies, extortion, and other crimes that date back to the 1970s.

The indictment covers mob killings from the days when the crime family was led by Paul Castellano, who was assassinated in 1985, to more recent in the 2000s.

Among the people accused are acting boss John "Jackie Nose" D'Amico, who was John Gotti's longtime sidekick, underboss Dominic Cefalu and consigliere Joseph "Jo Jo" Corozzo.

Gotti's brother Vincent and his nephew Richard will be charged with the 2003 attempted murder of a Brooklyn bagel shop owner Angelo Mugnolo.

In the 170-page indictment, authorities allege that associates of the crime family extorted people in the construction industry, embezzled from labor unions, engaged in loansharking and bookmaking.

This extensive investigation led the FBI to finding out that NBA referee Tim Donaghy was betting on basketball games with bookies. Donaghy pleaded guilty last summer and is cooperating with authorities.

Police in Sicily arrested Salvatore Lo Piccolo, a top mobster on the run for more than a decade who was vying to become La Cosa Nostra's next "boss of bosses."

At the time, investigators warned that Lo Piccolo had been working to mend ties with the U.S. and Italian mafia, such as the Gambino and Inzerillo crime families.

The relations between the mafia in U.S. and Italy were wrecked during Sicily's internal Mafia war of the 1980s and the rise of the Corleonesi clan, which dominated La Cosa Nostra until the arrests of boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina in 1993 and of his successor Bernardo Provenzano in 2006.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell, FBI officials and representatives from the Italian National Police are scheduled to discuss this case, which is the largest Mafia takedown in more than two decades, in a press conference later this morning.

The Gambino Family is one of the "Five Families" in the Mafia, along with the Bonanno, Lucchese, Genovese and Colombo families, which controls organized crime activities based in New York City. The Gambino Family was founded in 1931 by Vincenzo Mangano and was later taken over by Carlo Gambino, hence the name.

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