Mafia nabbed in Italy ? -US drug bust

Members of the powerful Gambino and Bonanno crime families were among 24 people arrested Tuesday in New York and several cities in Italy in a major anti-mafia raid, authorities said.

The FBI and Italian police carried out the raid as part of operation “New Bridge,” which targeted more than 40 people for international drug trafficking and organized crime in connection with the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, officials added.

Italian police arrested 17 suspects, anti-mafia prosecutor Franco Roberti told reporters at a news conference in Rome.

The FBI arrested seven people in New York in a coordinated raid, he added, including members of the Gambino and Bonanno families.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York named these seven suspects as ‘Ndrangheta member Raffaele Valente, also known as “Lello,” Gambino associate Franco Lupoi, Bonanno associate Charles Centaro, also known as “Charlie Pepsi,” Dominic Ali, Alexander Chan, Christos Fasarakis, and Jose Alfredo Garcia, also known as “Freddy.”

The defendants are charged with drug trafficking, money laundering and firearms offenses, “based, in part, on their participation in a transnational heroin and cocaine trafficking conspiracy involving the ‘Ndrangheta, one of Italy’s most powerful organized crime syndicates,” it said.

All seven pleaded not guilty Tuesday to the various charges in a federal court in Brooklyn.

Afterward, four of the men — Valente, Lupoi, Chan and Garcia — were held without bail, though bail could become an option later. In addition to the drug and money laundering charges, Valente and Lupoi are also charged with selling an unregistered firearm silencer.

Meanwhile, Centaro, Fasarakis and Ali all were free on bail. In addition to surrendering their passports, their travel within the United States is limited as well. Ali’s bond was $1.4 million bond, and bond was $1 million for the other two.

Investigators speaking at the news conference in Rome said the money found in the raids amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars.