Cosimo Cordì

Who is Cosimo Cordì?

Cosimo Cordì was a member of the 'Ndrangheta, a criminal and mafia-type organisation in Calabria, Italy. He was the head of the Cordì 'ndrina based in Locri, a hotbed of 'Ndrangheta activity. The Cordì 'ndrina is involved in a long blood feud with the Cataldo 'ndrina, from the same town, since the end of the 1960s.

His brother Domenico Cordì, was killed in Locri on June 23, 1967, in the so-called Piazza Mercato massacre, which signed the beginning of a long blood feud with the Cataldo 'ndrina. The motive for the elimination of Domenico Cordì was the alleged fleecing of some 1,700 cases of cigarettes that were smuggled into Catanzaro by Sicilian mafiosi of the Tagliavia and Spadaro families in Palermo to Antonio Macrì, the undisputed head of the 'Ndrangheta in Siderno allied with the Cataldos.

Cosimo Cordì took over as the head of the clan with his other brother, Antonio Cordì – known as ‘U Ragiuneri. Antonio Cordí was also a municipal counciler for the Italian Socialist Party and a powerful vote broker in national elections.

Cordì was arrested in March 1991, suspected of killing the brain surgeon Domenico Pandolfo who unsuccessfully operated Cordìs’s nine-year-old daughter Paola suffering from a complicated brain tumor. The girl died after three days and Pandolfo was killed in retaliation.