Vincent Flemmi

Vincent James Flemmi (1935–1979), also known as "Jimmy The Bear," was an Italian-American mobster who freelanced for the Winter Hill Gang and the Patriarca crime family. He was also a longtime informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was also the brother of government informant Stephen Flemmi.

Vincent J. Flemmi was born to Italian immigrant Giovanni Flemmi, and Mary Irene Flemmi, who was of Irish descent. He was raised in the Orchard Park tenement located at 25 Ambrose Street in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His father Giovanni was a bricklayer who, according to fellow mobster Kevin Weeks, served in the Royal Italian Army during World War I. His mother was a full-time homemakert. He was the brother of Stephen Flemmi and Michael S. Flemmi.

During the Boston gang wars of the 1960s, Vincent, along with Joseph Barboza became so feared, that the city's newspaper photographers often attached a note on the back of their arrest photos: "NO credit on photograph."

In May 1964, FBI Special Agent John Connolly filed a report on a conversation another one of his informants had with Vincent: "Flemmi told him all he wanted to do now is kill people, and that it is better than hitting (robbing) banks." Vincent's homicidal tendencies became so out of hand that Gennaro Anguilo held a sit down with Vincent inside an FBI-bugged room on Tremont Street. From now on, Anguilo told him—Raymond Patriarca would have to approve each of his hits, personally, just as he had done with Joseph Barboza. In March 1965, H. Paul Rico wanted to make Vincent a Top Echelon Informant for the FBI. On March 10, 1965 H. Paul Rico filed a report quoting an informant as saying that Vincent was going to murder Edward Deegan and that a "dry run has already been made and that a close associate of Deegan's has agreed to set him up." Two days later, despite their knowledge of the impending murder of Deegan, the Boston FBI office approved Vincent as an informant and assigned him to the agent who had recruited him, H. Paul Rico.

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