More than 40 people, including three mayors, other elected and appointed officials and Jewish clergy were arrested in the US states of New Jersey and New York on Thursday in an investigation into public corruption, international money laundering and human organ marketing, authorities said.

Photo taken on July 23, 2009 shows the Federal Court in Newark city of New Jersey State of the United States. Three mayors, two legislators and many government officials of New Jersey State were arrested for public corruption, international money laundering and human organ marketing and detained in the court where they are being inquested. [Cao Yiming/Xinhua]

There were so many arrests that handcuffed suspects were brought to court for processing in a bus. Variously dressed, several wore traditional orthodox clothes.

"Corruption was a way of life," Ralph J. Marra Jr., the acting United States attorney in Newark, New Jersey, across the Hudson River and a few miles west of New York City, told reporters. "They existed in an ethics-free zone."

The investigation was continuing and evidence gathered would be followed "to wherever the crime and corruption is occurring," Marra said.

New Jersey mayors Peter Cammarano of Hoboken, Dennis Elwell of Secaucus, Mayor Anthony Suarez of Ridgefield and Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini of Jersey City and assemblymen L. Harvey Smith and Daniel Van Pelt were among the officials named in the 10-year probe.

Rabbis in Brooklyn, New York, in Deal and Elberon, and other communities along the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County, New Jersey, were identified as from the enclaves of Syrian Jews and from the Hassidic sect.

Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, New York, was named in a plot where a kidney from a donor paid 10,000 US dollars was sold for 160,000 dollars, Mara said.

"Usually donors are vulnerable people who need the money," said Weysan Dun, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agent in charge of the Newark office. "This scheme preys on donors."