Girolamo Piromalli

On February 11, 1979, Mommo Piromalli died of cirrhosis of the liver in a prison hospital in Gioia Tauro. He was succeeded as head of the clan by his younger brother Giuseppe "Peppe" Piromalli. Piromalli also had contacts with Sicilian Mafiosi such as Angelo La Barbera and Stefano Bontate.

The 'Ndrangheta exploited the construction of the steelworks until the project was abandoned when the government decided there was no economic base for it. In 1977 disagreements about business interests emerged between Piromalli and the De Stefano clan. A hit squad headed by Peppe Piromalli killed Giorgio De Stefano. Some 1,000 people were killed in clan wars over the construction contracts.

These innovations and the new institution of La Santa were opposed by the more traditionalist bosses such as Antonio Macrì and Domenico Tripodo. Only at the end of the so-called First 'Ndrangheta war, which took place in 1974-76 and led to the deaths of Macrì and Tripodo as well as the rise of Piromalli and the De Stefano brothers as the new leaders of the Reggio Calabria 'ndrine, was the new institution fully recognized.

Nine men had been arrested, including Piromalli, in Gioia Tauro on March 23, 1974. In September 1974, he evaded from a clinic in Rome where he had been transferred to receive treatment for an ulcer. He was arrested again in October 1975 in Rome, where he had a lunch meeting with Paolo De Stefano and Pasquale Condello. Piromalli was in possession of banknotes that could be traced to the Getty kidnap. Two were convicted and sent to prison. The others, including Piromalli and Mammoliti, were acquitted for lack of evidence; Piromalli was acquitted in July 1976. The ransom was used to buy the trucks needed to establish a transport monopoly in the construction of the Gioia Tauro port.

When in 1974 businesses involved in the expansion of the port and steelworks in Gioia Tauro offered a three per cent kickback to be left in peace the three leading 'Ndrangheta families at the time, Antonio Macrì, the Piromalli clan and the De Stefano clan rejected the offer and wanted to be sub-contracted on work carried in order to control the project.

In 1973, Piromalli was charged of heroin trafficking when an undercover operation by the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) targeting Saverio Mammoliti revealed that Mammoliti needed permission of Macrì and "Don Mommo" Piromalli.

Piromalli was one of the men charged with the kidnap of John Paul Getty III on July 10, 1973, in Rome. The ransom initially demanded was $17 million (equivalent to $104 million in 2021) for his safe return. However, the family suspected a ploy by the rebellious teenager to extract money from his miserly grandfather. John Paul Getty Jr. asked his father J. Paul Getty for the money, but was refused, arguing that his 13 other grandchildren could also become kidnap targets if he paid.

In November 1973, an envelope containing a lock of hair and a human ear arrived at a daily newspaper. The second demand had been delayed three weeks by an Italian postal strike. The demand threatened that Paul would be further mutilated unless the victims paid $3.2 million. The demand stated "This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits."

When the kidnappers finally reduced their demands to $3 million, Getty agreed to pay no more than $2.2 million (equivalent to $13.4 million in 2021), the maximum that would be tax-deductible. He lent his son the remaining $800,000 at four percent interest. Getty's grandson was found alive on December 15, 1973, in a Lauria filling station, in the province of Potenza, shortly after the ransom was paid. Getty III was permanently affected by the trauma and became a drug addict. After a stroke brought on by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol in 1981, Getty III was rendered speechless, nearly blind and partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. He died on February 5, 2011, at the age of 54.

Together with Antonio Macrì from Siderno on the Ionic coast and Domenico Mico Tripodo, the boss of the city of Reggio Calabria and the surrounding areas, the Piromalli brothers formed a sort of triumvirate since the beginning of the 1960s until the outbreak of the First 'Ndrangheta war in the mid 1970s. Their senior position was recognized by all other heads of 'Ndrangheta families and their advice was in most cases followed without protest.

Mommo Piromalli and the bosses of several other families established La Santa at the end of the 1960s. In the same time, he was initiated in the Italian Freemasonry.

Before becoming one of the most feared criminal power brokers in the Gioia Tauro plain, Mommo Piromalli was a cowherd. In 1939 he was charged with illegal carriage of firearms, in 1940 for grievous bodily harm, in 1944 for robbery with violence and in 1950 for murder. In 1967, the court imposed a five-year mandatory internal banishment (soggiorno obbligato) to remove Piromalli from his home town and criminal associates.

Girolamo Piromalli (October 7, 1918 – February 11, 1979), also known as Mommo, was an Italian mobster and member of the 'Ndrangheta. He was capobastone (head of command) of the Piromalli 'ndrina based in his home town Gioia Tauro on the Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria.