He was arrested together with two other men, Giuseppe Madonia and Armando Bonanno, on 4 May 1980, for the murder of Carabinieri captain Emanuele Basile, who had been shot earlier that day.

As part of Sicilian law, the judge, despite the acquittal, ordered the three men to be sent into a form of exile to Sardinia, but they swiftly made their way back to Sicily.

Puccio was involved as well in the killing of Carabinieri Colonel Giuseppe Russo, on 20 August 1977, Antimafia judge Cesare Terranova[1] and Piersanti Mattarella – the president of the autonomous Sicilian Region – on 6 January 1980.

On 11 May 1989, he was beaten to death in his cell at the Ucciardone Prison in Palermo, by fellow inmates Antonino and Giuseppe Marchese, two other Mafiosi who had been acting on Riina's orders.

In 1990 an informant, Francesco Marino Mannoia, subsequently claimed that Puccio had become the boss of the Ciaculli Family after the murder of his predecessor, Giuseppe Greco, in 1987.