EXCLUSIVE
As many as 40 mobsters and members of a union being probed for taking no-show jobs in the Ground Zero cleanup will be busted today for similar schemes at other city construction sites, sources told The Post yesterday.
After a long-running organized-crime probe, FBI agents are planning to arrest members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Locals 14 and 15 in a series of early-morning raids.
Investigators have uncovered links between the two locals and high-ranking members of the Genovese and Colombo crime families, according to a 143-page indictment to be unsealed in Manhattan.
Among those being probed is a Local 15 master mechanic the feds suspect was the Genovese ring’s representative in the union.
The probe, initiated by the state Organized Crime Task Force more than a year ago, focused on many construction sites across the city, including the new $800 million Brooklyn Supreme Court building and Ground Zero.
But the indictment, to be announced by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jim Comey today, does not include allegations of illegal activities at Ground Zero, one source said.
The probe into union practices during the Ground Zero cleanup is continuing, the source said.
A spokesman for Comey’s office did not comment last night.