The DeCavalcante crime family is an organized crime family that operates in Elizabeth, New Jersey and surrounding areas in the state and is part of the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra). It operates on the other side of the Hudson River from the Five Families of New York, but it maintains strong relations with many of them, as well as with the Philadelphia crime family and the Patriarca crime family of New England. Its illicit activities include construction, building, and cement violations, drug trafficking, extortion, fencing, fraud, illegal gambling, hijacking, labor racketeering, loansharking, money laundering, murder, and pier thefts. The DeCavalcantes are, in part, the inspiration for the fictional DiMeo crime family of HBO's dramatic series The Sopranos. The DeCavalcante family was the subject of the CNBC program Mob Money, which aired on June 23, 2010.
