NEW YORK: FBI agents arrested around 100 alleged mafia members in and around New York early on Thursday in a massive crackdown on the region's infamous Cosa Nostra network, authorities said.

“It was very broad scope,” New York federal court spokesman Robert Nardoza said.

The arrests were made throughout New York and the New England area, with charges ranging from drug dealing to murder.

New York's historic Five Families of Italian-American mobsters have seen a sharp decline in fortunes over the last decade as a result of court testimony from turncoats breaking the once impenetrable code of silence.

In a sign of the importance being given to arrests, Attorney General Eric Holder and the assistant director of the FBI in New York, Janice Fedarcyk, were to give a press conference in Brooklyn.

Officials would give only the briefest details of the take-down. However, the New York Times, quoting unnamed sources, called it “the largest such sweep of organised crime figures ever conducted by federal authorities.” According to the report, some suspects were charged with murders, others with racketeering, extortion, loan-sharking, gambling and labor-racketeering in the construction and dock workers' industries.

The wave of arrests began early and was over by 8:00am (1300 GMT), the Times reported.

Cosa Nostra families once infiltrated and controlled swathes of the US economy, with a longtime stronghold in and around New York.

The phenomenon took root nearly a century ago and remains an important factor in organised crime, although ethnic-Russian, Mexican and Asian gangs have since moved in.

Although the Italian Mafia is in steep decline, compared to its heyday, it continues to loom large in the popular imagination thanks to classic movies such as “The Godfather” and the award-winning “Sopranos” series on cable television.

However, the organisation's aura of invincibility has long crumbled.

In 1991, the acting head of the Luchese family, Alphonse D'Arco, agreed to testify against his comrades. Then Salvatore Gravano testified against the Gambino family, leading to the imprisonment of John J. Gotti, previously known as the “Teflon Don,” because of his ability to escape prosecution.

However, a marathon effort to convict the son of Gotti, John “Junior” Gotti, in 2009 spectacularly collapsed. The mafia scion walked free after a mistrial that was the fourth time in five years prosecutors failed to pin charges on him.

The authorities subsequently said they were closing their case against Gotti. —AFP