[2] Law enforcement considered Cali to have been the Gambinos' "ambassador to Sicilian mobsters" and had linked him to the Inzerillo Mafia family from Palermo.
"[3] Cali was shot and killed outside his home in Staten Island on March 13, 2019, in connection with the killer's belief in the QAnon conspiracy theory.
[4][5][6] Cali was born on March 26, 1965, in New York City, to Augusto Cesare Calì and Agata Scimeca,[1] both natives of Palermo, Sicily.
In the early 1980s, after losing the Second Mafia War against the Corleonesi of Totò Riina, the Inzerillo family was forced to flee Sicily.
Nicchi finally settled in Daytona Beach, Florida, where he was known to employ high school students as drug runners.
[1][12] In early 2003, Cali and fellow captain Leonard "Lenny" DiMaria began extorting "mob taxes" from Joseph Vollaro, the owner of a trucking and contracting company that was involved in building a NASCAR speedway on Staten Island.
Vollaro was eventually forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars as tribute to D'Amico and Gambino boss Nicholas Corozzo.
[20] A September 29, 2018, report stated that Cali "infused the family with "zips" – hoodlums from the old country – and bulked up its heroin and OxyContin business".
[21] In March 2019, police investigating Cali's death publicly claimed that he had been "the acting boss" of the Gambino organized crime family.
[22] Cali died at Staten Island University Hospital on March 13, 2019, at the age of 53, after being shot at about 9:20 p.m. in front of his home on Hilltop Terrace in the Todt Hill area.
[22] On March 16, 24-year-old suspect Anthony Comello was arrested in Brick, New Jersey, by the New York Police Department and US Marshals, to face murder charges on Staten Island.
[31] The New York Times reported that at his first court appearance, Comello "displayed symbols and phrases associated with QAnon scrawled on his hand in pen".
The case otherwise remains sealed due to "actual and implied" threats from members of organized crime against Comello and his family.