More than 100 alleged organised crime members in three states have been arrested by law enforcement officials in what they described as the largest operation against the mob in US history.

The co-ordinated arrests were made in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island on Thursday morning, with 127 people charged in 16 indictments alleging a variety of crimes including murder, loan-sharking, arson, narcotics trafficking, extortion, robbery, illegal gambling and labour racketeering.

The indictments depict the mob as playing an important role in several US industries including construction and cement, as well as having infiltrated the ports.

Eric Holder, US attorney-general, said at a news conference in Brooklyn that the arrests marked an important step in disrupting the illegal activities of the US mafia, also known as La Cosa Nostra.

“Mafia operations can negatively impact our economy – not only through a wide array of fraud schemes but also through the illegal imposition of mob ‘taxes’ at our ports, in our construction industries and on our small businesses,” Mr Holder said.

“This largest single day operation against La Cosa Nostra sends the message that our fight against traditional organised crime is strong, and our commitment is unwavering.”

The sweep involved alleged mob bosses from infamous families such as the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Luchese families. Among the arrested were Luigi Manocchio, the 83-year-old former boss of the New England La Cosa Nostra; Andrew Russo, the 76-year-old street boss of the Colombo family; and Joseph Corozzo, the 69-year-old Gambino family consigliere.

The operation was accomplished in part through the wiretaps of thousands of conversations and some of the alleged crimes date back to the 1980s.

“This is really an extraordinary chapter in American law enforcement history,” said James Jacobs, an organised crime expert at the New York University School of Law. “A lot of people have said that since the FBI has shifted its priorities to the war on terror so substantially, it wouldn’t be able to maintain its presence against organised crime as in the past but this seems to allay that fear.”

Janice Fedarcyk, assistant director of the FBI’s New York field office, said “mob taxes” relating to labour racketeering by organised crime families costs the US economy millions of dollars a year.

One indictment alleges that the Colombo crime family had control over the local cement and concrete workers’ union and another detailed a conspiracy by the Gambino family to extort several New York construction companies.

The charges also reveal the casual nature of the mob’s culture of violence, detailing the alleged murders of two people shot dead in a public bar because of a dispute over a spilt drink.

Ms Fedarcyk said on Thursday that the national scope of the mob in the US had been diminished over the years and the myths of their unbreakable vows of silence over their crimes had been eroded.

However, she said the crime families had been successful at reconstituting themselves over the years.

“Arresting and convicting the hierarchies of the five families has not eradicated the problem,” Ms Fedarcyk said.

The FBI traces the history of the US mafia to Giuseppe Esposito, a member of the Sicilian mafia who fled to New York the 1800s after murdering the chancellor and a vice chancellor of a Sicilian province. Other Italian criminals followed, rooting themselves in major US cities and creating violent family gangs.