The dubious distinction belongs to a highly organized Albanian group that called itself The Corporation, authorities said. The outfit tossed the Luchese crime family out of Astoria, Queens, prosecutors said.

The FBI and Manhattan U.S. Attorney David Kelley announced yesterday the arrest of the group's alleged boss, Alex Rudaj, and 21 other reputed gang members charged in a racketeering indictment.

The indictment does not mention the Luchese family, merely a "competing criminal organization." But a prosecutor outlined the underworld coup during a bail hearing yesterday.

For years, the Luchese family - founded in the 1950s - controlled gambling in Astoria through Greek associates, law enforcement sources said. But by the summer of 2001, the Luchese family was in disarray, authorities said. Its boss was jailed for life, its underboss was facing extortion charges, and its acting boss was under heavy surveillance. The family was down to 120 members from 200.

Enter Alex Rudaj, head of a Bronx-based Albanian gang that was itching to expand its gambling operations, prosecutors said. During the bail hearing in Manhattan Federal Court, prosecutor Tim Treanor said the Rudaj group was responsible for "several beatings in taking over the Astoria operations" from the Luchese family.

The prosecutor alleged one defendant, Ljusa Nuculovic, held a knife to the throat of a suspected informant and was involved in an August 2001 shoot-'em-up at an Astoria social club called Soccer Fever. Nuculovic, an admitted gun-runner for the Kosovo Liberation Army during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s, wound up taking over the Lucheses' Astoria operation, Treanor said.

Nuculovic was denied bail yesterday.

Sources said the Albanians also were involved in beating up associates of both the Luchese and Colombo families. And boss Rudaj even went so far as to steal a nickname - Allie Boy - from Colombo boss Alphonse Persico, sources said.

"We have seen ... groups such as the Russians moving in on La Cosa Nostra," Kelley said. "This happens to be the most extensive that I've seen."

Originally published on October 27, 2004