More than 60 accused organized crime figures were arrested yesterday at the start of what will become one of the largest mob prosecutions in New York history.

Dozens of alleged members and associates of the Gambino crime family have been charged in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn with racketeering and extorting funds from unions and construction companies. Prosecutors also filed charges in seven killings dating back more than 30 years. Five of the murders, prosecutors say, are linked to a single reputed Gambino soldier.

“Organized crime still exists in the city and state of New York,” Attorney General Cuomo, one of several law enforcement officials at a press conference to announce the takedown, said. “We like to think it’s a vestige of the past, but its not.”

Among those arrested were Demenico Cefalu, whom prosecutors say is the family’s acting underboss, and Joseph Corozzo, the consigliere. By mid-afternoon yesterday, the family’s reputed acting boss, John “Jackie the Nose” D’Amico, wasn’t in custody, although a law enforcement source said the reputed boss had made plans to turn himself in. He had apparently been on vacation, the source said.

The Gambino family, prosecutors wrote in a court filing, “is still entrenched in the construction and trucking industries and remains a violent criminal enterprise willing to engage in violence in order make illegal profits.”

Among the construction projects the Gambino family profited from, prosectors say, was a plan to build a Nascar track on Staten Island. A cement business was forced to make extortion payments to reputed mobsters, according to the indictment. And two employees of International Speedway Corp,, which was to build the track, received payments, prosecutors say. In the end, the track was never built, due to community opposition.

The court papers did not indicate whether any of the alleged construction extortions involved public works projects. But one person charged, Anthony Delvescovo, is an employee of the New Jersey-based Schiavone Construction Co., which has worked on subway lines and water tunnels for the city. In the last decade the company has had contracts with the city worth more than a $100 million.

Extortion payments to Gambino members were also allegedly made during the construction of the Liberty View Harbor site in Jersey City.

The case is built around confidential informants and hundreds of hours of taped conversations, officials said.

Among the five murders that prosecutors are linking to an accused Gambino soldier, Charles Carneglia, is the killing of a Brooklyn Court officer in 1976, The victim, Albert Gelb, had been scheduled to testify against Carneglia in a gun possession case just four days before he was found dead in his car.

Many of the victims of the murders charged in the indictment were reputed organized crime figures. But one murder with which Carneglia is charged is the death of an armored truck guard, Jose Rivera, who was shot during a 1990 robbery.

In recent years, federal prosecutors were frustrated in their efforts to prosecute the one-time head of the Gambino family, John A. Gotti. Three racketeering trials against Gotti, whose father John J. Gotti, had previously been the family boss, ended with hung juries. John A. Gotti is not charged in the current indictment.