Ilario is the single child of Anjelo Costa and Alda Costa, Ilarios Family was too small and not wealthy enough to be a cartel, neither where they in big ones like the Benitez, thus mostly being the underdogs.
Ilarios mother died shortly after he was born due to a difficult birth. His father didn't fair much better, he got killed in a raid on a Corsair installation in Omicron Eta when Ilario was about 15.

Naturaly Ilario landed on the streets pretty fast since he wasn't in possesion of money let alone a ship.
He did what most people do when they are in the same situation... he slept in the Cardamine fields and stole on the streets.
After a while he started to steal on the big spaceports that are set up all around Malta and sneaked into the Freighters that transport Cardi to various locations in Sirius to steal the paychecks and anything else that was of value.

At one point he decided that this wasn't exciting enough anymore the thrill wasn't there anymore in just stealing money.
his aim was to steal a small ship and see where it takes him, having spent a lot of the past 7 years on the local starport he knew how to get around without being noticed.
Ilario watched that he didn't approache any of the ships that belonged to the bigger cartels since there where always guards around those ship, and they didn't bother to ask, since shooting is much easier.

He did eventually manage to find a suitable ship that wouldn't be missed by anybody exept the captain.
He managed to get of the planet and out of Alpha following some smugglers that where full with Cardi.
Hasty as Ilario is he forgot to take enough cardi into his stolen ship so that he could survive longer trips away from Malta.
As fate wanted it he was able to get some cardi of his smuggling friends on the trip.
But that was about it with his luck since soon after that the Liberty Navy made its entrance and took them all down fast and merciless.
Floating in space wasn't as fun as Ilario thought it would be since he had never flown a ship in his live and flying around in an escape pod isn't really the same.

But again he had the luck of being picked up by a fellow Outcast that brought him back home for a nice price, which meant all the money he had.
This time though Ilario wasn't going to stay long, he draw some attention to himselfe as the captain of the stolen smugglership had some contacts in the higher ends of the cartels.

Given him a choise of joining the 75th Mosquito squadron, or face death by the hand of the cartel whom he owed a ship Ilario thought that staying alive longer would suit him fine.