Toward the mid 1970s, Giuseppe Schifilliti was inducted into the DeCavalcante crime family, under the leadership of Sam DeCavalcante and early Underboss, Giovanni Riggi. By starting out as a soldier, Schifilliti was hired in the same "Laborers' International Union of North America" at Local 1030, where he used to extort and bribe union officials to influence the power of the DeCavalcante crime family in construction sites, throughout the 1970s, alongside Riggi, who was then seen as the new boss of the family.