By Steve Scherer
ROME (Reuters) - U.S. police, acting at the request of an Italian court, have arrested a New York City man authorities identify as a member of the Gambino mob family for extortion, Italian officials said on Thursday.
A court in the southern Italian city of Potenza ordered the arrest of Francesco Palmeri, 61, and seven others for trying to extort 1 million euros (784,281 pounds) from an Italian businessman, according to the arrest warrant seen by Reuters.
Italian mafia groups like the Sicilian Cosa Nostra or the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta have traditionally worked actively with their American cousins but arrests have slowed since the heyday of trans-Atlantic mob cooperation in the 1980s.
"This demonstrates the international reach of the 'Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra and their still-strong ties with the historic New York mob families," Andrea Grassi, an investigator for SCO, an Italian anti-mafia police unit, told Reuters.
U.S. enforcement collaborated with the SCO in the trans-Atlantic sting. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York issued an arrest warrant to allow Italy to seek his extradition, an Italian official said. He confirmed on Thursday the arrest had taken place overnight.
Sicilian-born Palmeri is considered a leading member of one of New York's most powerful mob families, the Gambinos, the arrest warrant says, citing the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The rare case of attempted international extortion emerged during a separate investigation into a trans-Atlantic drug smuggling and money laundering ring that involved members of the 'Ndrangheta and the Gambinos.
Palmeri made two separate trips to Italy in 2013 to put pressure on the owner of a southern Italian company that plans and installs electrical systems for oil platforms. The business owner also received a series of letters from "friends in Brooklyn" asking him for money, according to the warrant.
The Italian businessman was strong-armed about a loan he was given in the 1980s, the warrant says, which police said likely came from international drug traffickers connected to deceased New York mobster Cesare Bonventre, who was born in the same Sicilian town as Palmeri, Castellamare del Golfo.
Bonventre, known as "The Tall Guy", was a high-ranking member of another New York crime family, the Bonannos, before being murdered during an internal power struggle in 1984.
The maximum sentence for criminal conspiracy to commit international extortion aggravated by mafia membership is about 20 years, investigators said.
(Editing by Angus MacSwan and David Holmes)