Although they were, admittedly, a small “borgata” with their primary territory being centered around Elizabeth, New Jersey, for many decades the DeCavalcante Family also operated several satellite regimes in the states of New York and Connecticut. By the late 1960s into the early 1970s, they had also expanded their underworld reach down to South Florida.
Aside from a well-established Brooklyn regime, for many years, the DeCavalcantes also maintained a separate faction operating from Queens County.
The DeCavalcante Family’s Queens-based regime was centered around the Astoria and Long Island City neighborhoods in the northwest corner of the borough, located just underneath the 59th Street Bridge on the other side of the East River, across from Manhattan. This crew was originally headed by a very respected old-time mafioso, caporegime Giuseppe Lolordo.
Lolordo, as well as many other key members of this regime and Family, had either immigrated from or were descendants of Families born in Ribera, Sicily. The little town of Ribera had always been the backbone of the overall DeCavalcante Family membership since this borgata’s very inception. The FBI later documented that Queens-faction soldier Pietro Galletta’s brother, Francesco (Frank) Galletta, served as the elected mayor of Ribera for several years.
