Mass arrests in anti-Mafia sweep in U.S. and Italy

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. authorities arrested 54 organized crime suspects on Thursday including what they considered three high-ranking members of the Gambino crime family in an operation in New York and Italy, officials said.

Charges were being filed against 62 people including the street boss, the under boss and the consigliere of the Gambino family -- the three highest ranking members not already in prison, a U.S. law enforcement source said.

The U.S. source, who had direct knowledge of the operation, asked not to be identified because the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn was due to announce the arrests in a news conference later on Thursday.

Earlier on Thursday, judicial sources in Sicily said a large anti-Mafia operation code-named "Old Bridge" involved arrests warrants issued on both sides of the Atlantic.

In what appeared to be a separate operation in Naples, police arrested a suspected leading figure of that southern city's criminal underworld on Thursday.

He is linked to the Secondigliano clan, part of the fragmented Camorra whose criminal activities include illegal waste disposal, one of the causes of an emergency in Naples where refuse collection has all but collapsed.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York, Wladimir Pantaleone in Palermo and Laura Viggiani in Naples, editing by Philip Pullella, Mary Gabriel and Vicki Allen)