Three reputed leaders of the Lucchese organized crime family were charged yesterday with heading a $2.2 billion sports-betting and loan-sharking operation targeted in an investigation by the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice.

The investigation, Operation Heat, also uncovered an alliance between organized crime figures and a member of the Bloods street gang, authorities said.

The arrests and alleged connection between La Cosa Nostra and the Bloods were disclosed by New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram during a news conference in West Orange.

Milgram said "an alarming alliance" between the traditional mob family and the street gang had smuggled heroin, cocaine, marijuana and cell phones into East Jersey State Prison in Rahway.

One of those charged was a guard at the prison.

The gambling operation involved high-tech Web sites and a wire room in Costa Rica where most of the transactions were processed, authorities said.

The top figures taken into custody were New York mob leaders Joseph DiNapoli and Matthew Madonna, both 72, and Ralph V. Perna, 61, who was described as the ranking member of the New Jersey branch of the crime family.

DiNapoli and Madonna, according to the charges, routinely received "tribute payments" from Perna and others who directed the gambling operation from New Jersey.

Perna's three sons - Joseph, 38, John, 30, and Ralph M., 35 - and Martin Tacetta, 56, a former underboss of the New Jersey faction of the Lucchese organization, were also among 27 reputed mob members and associates charged.

Five others, including reputed Bloods leader Edwin B. Spears, 33, and prison guard Michael T. Bruinton, 43, were charged in the prison-smuggling operation.

Twenty arrests were made yesterday. Warrants and complaints were issued for those not picked up.

The Division of Criminal Justice alleged the gambling ring handled about $2.2 billion in wagers over 15 months beginning in August 2006. While the ring was sophisticated and included password-protected Web sites, division director Gregory Paw said, the defendants "collected debts with the same crude tactics that have always characterized organized crime, namely extortion, violence and loan-sharking."

Full Story