An investigation of the extortion of trash haulers has resulted in charges against 32 people in the New York area, federal authorities said Wednesday.

Thirty of the suspects were arrested Wednesday, and two others were expected to surrender later in the week, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the southern district of New York said in a press release.

Suspected members or associates from three different organized crime families in the New York area were among the arrested, the statement said.

The main indictment alleges 12 members of "an organized criminal enterprise" were connected to a waste disposal business that was involved with loansharking, mail and wire fraud, extortion and stolen property offenses. These 12 were charged with racketeering conspiracy charges.

Among the dozen is Carmine Franco, also known as "Papa Smurf" and "Uncle Sonny," who authorities also accuse of extortion and the interstate transportation of stolen property. The attorney's office said 77-year-old Franco is an associate of the Genovese crime family.

Seventeen others were charged with individual acts of extortion, loansharking and other crimes, the attorney's office said.

Court documents claim the suspects controlled several waste disposal businesses, including those based in New York's Westchester, Rockland and Nassau counties, and in New Jersey's Bergen and Passaic counties. The men allegedly threatened the businesses by demanding extortion payments for protection and telling them which trash pick-up stops they could use, the attorney's office said. Officials say many of the charged had avoided having any sort of official connection to the trash collection businesses they controlled.

"...While these accused mobsters may have hidden themselves behind seemingly legitimate owners of waste disposal businesses, law enforcement was able to pierce that veil through its painstaking, multi-year investigation," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.

"In addition to the violence that often accompanies their schemes, the economic impact amounts to a mob tax on goods and services," George C. Venizelos, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI's New York office, said in a statement.

The thirty arrested suspects, who are all residents of either New York or New Jersey, were expected to appear and be arraigned in a Manhattan federal court Wednesday.

The Genovese, Gambino and Luchese organized crime families have a long history of extorting trash collection companies, The Associated Press reported.

From the archives, Jan. 2011: More than 120 alleged mobsters arrested on East Coast

A Detroit man described by federal agents as a formerly high-ranking gangster is breaking his silence about the unsolved mystery in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa after decades of refusing to answer questions.

The man -- who federal agents say is a main character in the infamous unsolved mystery -- says the union leader was buried in a field in suburban Detroit -- about 20 miles north of the restaurant where he was last seen.  

Eighty-five years old and barely able to walk, Tony Zerilli never thought this day would come. 

“I’m dead broke. I got no money,” Zerilli told NBC 4 New York. “My quality of life is zero.”

It’s certainly not what you would expect to hear from a man the feds say was once a high-ranking member of the Detroit La Cosa Nostra family. 

Read more at NBC New York

“He actually had risen up at one point to the underboss – or second in command,” Andy Arena, former head of the FBI for New York and Detroit, said of Zerilli.

Former U.S. Attorney Keith Corbett, who prosecuted organized crime in Detroit for 20 years, says Detroit's mafia families share blood relations in addition to their sworn bonds, which is one reason why Hoffa’s disappearance has gone unsolved.

In July 1975, Hoffa told people he was going to meet two men at a restaurant in suburban Detroit. One was a suspected member of the Detroit mafia. The other was a Teamster boss from New Jersey. Hoffa, who’d been investigated for dealings with the mafia, was seen at the restaurant -- and then never again.

“Organized crime was involved in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa,” Corbett said.

“I think the interesting thing about the Hoffa disappearance was that it was compartmentalized to only a few people," Arena said. "They kept that thing quiet."

Until now. Zerilli says he wants to set the record straight about his life -- and what happened to Hoffa.

Zerilli denies ever being in the mafia or having anything to do with the disappearance of Hoffa. 

"What happened to Hoffa had nothing to do with me in any way, shape or form,” Zerilli said. 

Zerilli says he was crushed when Hoffa vanished. It was news he received while behind bars after he was convicted for being involved in illegal operations in Las Vegas casinos.

“They accused me while I was away," Zerilli said of his time in prison. "If that’s not an alibi I don’t know what the hell an alibi is."

"If I wasn’t away I don’t think it ever would’ve happened, that’s all I can tell you," said Zerilli. "I would’ve done anything in the world to protect Jim Hoffa.”

Still, when Zerilli was released from prison, the feds were all over him -- they demanded information about Hoffa’s disappearance. That didn’t do much good back then and even today Zerilli says he refuses to name names.

“I’m not a stool pigeon,” he said. 

But the feds are convinced that Zerilli knows what happened. 

“Clearly when he returned he would’ve been a person, based on his position in the hierarchy, who would have been able to learn the facts and circumstances surrounding the disappearance of James Earl Hoffa,” said Corbett.

Zerilli says he’s been frustrated watching the FBI chase countless tips from publicity hounds seeking attention by saying they know Hoffa’s burial spot – rumors that have included locations around Detroit and the Meadowlands in New Jersey.  

“All this speculation about where he is and he’s not," Zerilli said. "They say he was in a meat grinder. It’s all baloney."

The truth, Zerilli says, is that Hoffa never got very far from where he was last seen. He believes the union leader's final resting place is about 20 miles north of the restaurant where he was last scene, in a field in northern Oakland County, Mich.

He was buried in a shallow grave and the plan was to move the body at another time, but Hoffa's remains were never moved from the first spot where they were buried, Zerilli said.

"Once he was buried here, he was buried and they let it go,” Zerilli said.

When told about Zerilli’s revelations, Corbett, a man who’d worked organized crime in Detroit for two decades, was flabbergasted. 

“The bureau had a short list of people they wanted to talk to about that and I can’t think of anybody on that list who was more highly placed then Anthony Zerilli,” said Corbett. "This is certainly the most interesting and attractive lead that has come up since I’ve been involved with this -- and I think the bureau would react the same way.”

For his part, Zerilli wants closure for himself and Hoffa’s family.

“I’d like to just prove to everybody that I’m not crazy," Zerilli said. "And it means a lot to me. What happened, happened while I was in jail. And I feel very, very bad about it and it should never have happened to Jim Hoffa. He didn’t deserve what happened to him. 

Zerilli also wants a payday. He's working on a book and has a website, hoffafound.com. He believes that he can make money if -- and when -- Hoffa’s body is found in that field. He’s waiting on the FBI to make the next move.

WBUT 90.9 / via AP

This booking photograph, obtained by Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger is shown in this 2011 booking mug.

Boston mobster James ‘‘Whitey’’ Bulger is out of the hospital and back in jail, where’s he’s awaiting trial for his alleged role in 19 slayings, The Boston Globe reported.

The US Marshals Service confirmed Tuesday that Bulger, 83, a former paid FBI informant, was back in custody at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility. The Marshals Service released no other information to the Globe.

Bulger was taken to Boston Medical Center early Sunday after complaining of chest pains; he was previously examined at a Boston hospital in December.

He has a history of heart trouble. Bulger’s ongoing illness had led to reports speculating that his trial scheduled in March could be delayed.

Defense attorneys have already asked for an eight-month delay as they review more than 300,000 case documents. Bulger in 2011 pleaded not guilty to a 32-count federal racketeering indictment accusing him of participating in 19 murders,  extortion, money laundering and weapons charges in crimes committed while allegedly running a South Boston-based criminal enterprise that began in the 1970s and continued after he fled in 1995.

US Marshals Service / via Reuters

Catherine Greig, long time girlfriend of former mob boss and fugitive James "Whitey" Bulger, is seen in a 2011 booking mug.

Bulger fled Boston in 1994 after being tipped off by a corrupt FBI handler, according to prosecutors.

He was one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives until he was captured in June 2011 in Santa Monica, Calif., with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig. The couple had lived quietly in the oceanside city at least 1996, prosecutors said.

Greig, 61, pleaded guilty last June to helping Bulger stay on the lam and was sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $150,000 by a federal judge who said that she had aided “someone accused of the most serious crimes imaginable” to evade capture by law enforcement.

“We’re all responsible for what we do,” U.S. District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock told Greig at her sentencing hearing after her defense team had claimed she was a victim of her love for Bulger. “We all make choices.”

Bulger’s lawyers last month in court papers claimed late federal prosecutor Jeremiah O’Sullivan gave the gangster free reign to commit his alleged underworld reign of terror.

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AP Photo/WBUR 90.

This booking photograph shows Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger.

Mobster James "Whitey" Bulger was taken to a Boston hospital Sunday after complaining of chest pains at the prison where he is awaiting trial for his alleged role in 19 murders, local media reported.

Bulger, 83, the former leader of the Winter Hill Gang, was hospitalized Sunday for chest pains at Boston Medical Center, according to The Boston Globe.

Plymouth Fire Department battalion chief Kevin Murphy told The Globe that firefighters responded to the Plymouth County Correctional Facility at 1:48 a.m. Sunday and took Bulger to the hospital.

WBUR-FM in Boston first reported that Bulger was hospitalized for chest pains, citing unnamed law enforcement sources.

According to NBC affiliate WHDH in Boston, security has been heightened at the medical center, and Massachusetts State Corrections officers are working in shifts during Bulger's stay. U.S. marshals are also at the site guarding Bulger, WHDH reported.

“Maybe he's trying to get a rest, get out of the jail cell for a while,” a local resident told WHDH.

A Boston Medical Center representative refused to comment on the hospital's public safety plans, WHDH said.

The U.S. attorney's office, the U.S. Marshals Service, and Bulger attorney Hank Brennan declined to comment.

Bulger's trial is scheduled to begin in March, but his lawyers have said they cannot be ready by then because they are reviewing more than 300,000 documents turned over by prosecutors. Last week, they asked that the trial be moved to November 2013.

Bulger's lawyers said in court papers filed Friday that the current trial date infringes on Bulger's constitutional rights to effective counsel and due process.

Bulger's lead attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., has repeatedly complained that prosecutors have turned over documents in a disorganized fashion. Prosecutors have accused Carney of using stall tactics.

Whitey Bulger's lover gets 8 years in prison

Bulger fled Boston in 1994 and was captured last year in Santa Monica, Calif.

The defense says Bulger was an FBI informant who had immunity to commit crimes while he was providing information about the Mafia, his gang's main rival. In court papers filed this week, Carney identified former U.S. Attorney Jeremiah O'Sullivan as the federal official Bulger claims gave him immunity. O'Sullivan died in 2009.

Prosecutors say Bulger never received immunity from anyone.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Boston Police Department via EPA

A Boston Police booking image dated March 16,1953, of James 'Whitey' Bulger.

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