In 1930 when Capone's tax troubles began to surface, at the end of that same year, Ricca and possibly Rio chaired a meeting at a speakeasy on the South Side which was alegedly owned by Frank Nitti, but he wasnt present at the gathering since he also had problems with the law. Attendees were Ricca, Rio, Humphreys, Pierce, and also and also Roland Libonati, Saul Tannenbaum, Al Prignano, and Tony Pintozzi. So we can only guess on what was the subject on this meeting but my personal bet is that Ricca and Rio were "representing" the new "acting" administration to the political groups which were Prignano, Libonati etc. Proof for this meeting was the raid which occurred that same day and everyone got arrested. In addition, Ricca, Rio and Prignano represented the West Side faction, which again might indicate that the South Side and Cicero factions, Capone's old crews, were no longer in charge. Previously, Diamond Joe was the boss of the West Side but when he got killed, Ricca, Mops Volpe and John Montna took over the territory.


In February 1932, Ricca again attended a meeting with D’Andrea, Rio, and one Mike Costello and they were all arrested during that same meeting. So by the end of that year, both Nitti and Capone were sent to jail, and i think that Nitti was sent to 18 months. So the moment they stepped foot in prison, someone immediately began calling the shots. For example the murder of Matt Kolb. Shortyl after his release, Mayor Cermak tried to eleminate Nitti, but failed. The problem was that Nitti ended up in hospital quite shot up. So my point is that during this period Nitti was absent and my personal bet is that Ricca was in charge at least for awhile. Although I have to be honest that the most confusing period on who was the boss, at least for me, is from 1934, when Nitti fully recovered, until 1940. Many big players came up during this period and one of them was Campagna.