He succeeded his uncle Girolamo Piromalli as head of the family clan that controls the port of Gioia Tauro and is one of the major powers in the 'Ndrangheta.

In his bedroom there was an altar dedicated to the Madonna of Polsi, in the municipality of San Luca, where the chiefs of the 'Ndrangheta locali meet regularly during the September Feast.

One of the plots was to deliver votes to Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (Il Popolo della Libertà, PdL) coalition during the election campaign in 2008 in return for a relaxation of Piromalli’s prison stature.

Aldo Micciché, a businessman who moved to Venezuela after being convicted of fraudulent bankruptcy in Italy, planned to fill in 50,000 blank ballot slips for Italian voters in Latin America obtained from corrupt officials.

Micciché asked two leading members of the Piromalli clan to visit Marcello Dell'Utri – Berlusconi's right-hand man – at his Milan office.