Raised in Canarsie, Brooklyn, Lastorino soon joined the Lucchese crime family under Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo in extortion, loansharking and illegal gambling operations during the 1970s, and was recognized as one of the most notorious hitmen from the Brooklyn faction of the crime family.
Involved in loansharking, extortion, illegal gambling and especially narcotics activities, Polizzi continued to operate in the Newark faction of the family throughout the 1960s, but as Sam DeCavalcante took over the family in 1965, Polizzi was passed over of being promoted, as Giovanni "John the Eagle" Riggi was made captain of DeCavalcante's crew.
At the time, Scarabino's criminal activities were labor and construction racketeering, illegal gambling, loansharking, extortion and murder, as he reportedly conspired to murder Daniel Annunziatta and even former Acting boss and captain, Gaetano "Corky" Vastola, in the early 1990s on the orders of John D'Amato, who had been recruited by John Gotti into take over the DeCavalcante crime family after the imprisonment of Riggi in 1990.
Daniel Leo (born 1941), acting boss of the Genovese crime family who was sentence in 2008 to five years in prison for racketeering and loansharking.
According to law enforcement officials Rizzuto oversaw a criminal empire that imported and distributed tonnes of heroin, cocaine and hashish in Canada, laundered hundreds of millions of dollars, lent out millions more through loansharking operations and profited handsomely from illegal gambling, fraud and contract killings.