By the time of his defection, Luigi Riccio had a reputation as one of the bloodiest and most fearsome killers in the NCO, but was also considered to be a fickle individual for his well-known propensity of switching sides.
He gathered under him a small but deadly group of associates which included Salvatore Imperatrice, Mario Incarnato, Carmine Argentato, his brother-in-law Vincenzo Duraccio, and Ernesto D'Alessandri.
This group soon came to be known for its inclination to resolve any disputes by the authority of their firepower, and with the progress of time, its services became increasingly in demand in other areas under the NCO's control.
Eventually, he wrote to Riccio asking him not to kill his wife, but to paralyze her with a shot to the back, in order to condemn her to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
[1] Riccio willingly obliged, and together with Carmine Argentato promptly executed the request by shooting her both in the legs and arms while she was lying on her bed.
Upon hearing of this news, Nocerino drank a mixture of ethyl alcohol, cigarette butts and ashes which made him ill and put him in the same infirmary with a 104 degree fever.
Riccio vividly remembered this last episode because the corpses had been buried 50 yards away from his house, but after a while he became anxious and decided to move them to the cemetery of a nearby village.
[1] As a branch manager in the NCO, he showed himself competent at handling troublesome subordinates by using an innovative style of approach rarely found in the traditional Camorra underworld.
For instance, when Antonio Caldarelli aka 'o Malommo (The Bad Man) refused to promptly execute Riccio's orders, he was sentenced to one month of suspension from the NCO's payroll, a practise found more among Italian soccer players than gangsters.
Riccio who was serving a minor sentence in prison at the time decided to have Fiorentino killed without consulting Cutolo, and asked Carmine Argentato to perform the hit.
When he was eventually released from prison, Riccio sensed that he was no longer safer within the NCO and he asked for the protection of the Nuova Famiglia in exchange for his skills as a killer.
In late 1983, after the death of his wife which left him with a baby daughter to look after, Luigi Riccio decided to collaborate with the Italian Justice system and became a pentito.