2011 United States Mob Crackdown

Ninety-one members and associates of seven organized crime families of La Cosa Nostra (LCN), including the New England LCN family, all five New York-based families and the New Jersey-based Decavalcante family have been charged with federal crimes in 16 indictments returned in four judicial districts, announced Attorney General Eric Holder. Another 36 defendants also have been charged for their roles in alleged associated criminal activity.

The arrests of nearly 130 organized crime suspects Thursday represent the largest mob sweep in U.S. history but do not necessarily signal a re-emergence of the once-dominant Mafia, federal officials and crime analysts say.

This doesn't suggest they are getting stronger," says St. Johns University professor Howard Abadinsky, who has studied the mob for more than 30 years. "It shows they have always been there.

Federal authorities orchestrated one of the biggest Mafia takedowns in FBI history Thursday, charging 127 suspected mobsters and associates in the Northeast with murders, extortion and other crimes spanning decades.

Past investigations have resulted in strategic strikes aimed at crippling individual crime families. This time, authorities used a shotgun approach, with some 800 federal agents and police officers making scores of simultaneous arrests stemming from different mob investigations in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island.