Dive summary:

• Thirty-two people accused of involvement with the New York Mafia were charged Wednesday after a federal investigation into Mafia control of the garbage-hauling industry.
• Thirty of the people were arrested and charged with activities such as racketeering, extortion, loan-sharking and fraud, and the police expect two more people to surrender by Friday.
• The families are thought to have taken over local waste companies, sometimes by force, and operated them as mob fronts.

From the article:

“Organized crime still wraps its tentacles around industries it has fed off for decades, but law enforcement continues to pry loose its grip,” US Attorney Preet Bharara said. “Here, as described in the indictments, organized crime insinuated itself into the waste-disposal industry throughout a vast swath of counties in New York and New Jersey, and the tactics they used to exert and maintain their control come right out of the Mafia playbook – extortion, intimidation, and threats of violence.” ...