Old-time Buffalo Mobster 'Jimmy' Caci, 86, Dies

Jimmy” Caci

Vincent D. “Jimmy” Caci, described by associates as one of the toughest mobsters ever to emerge from Buffalo’s underworld, died of an illness last month in Palm Springs, Calif., two weeks after his 86th birthday.

A one-time tough mobster said to have specialized in loansharking and shakedown schemes in Buffalo, and later in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, he was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Cheektowaga, "a low-key farewell for a man who lived a stormy life, rubbed elbows with big-time mobsters and entertainers, and got involved in some high-profile criminal investigations," reports The Buffalo News.

According to other reports, he also owned his own construction company in Erie, Pa., and was also the owner of a restaurant and nightclub in New York and California. He was well known for his cartoon drawings, whether they were on a tablecloth, napkin or a drawing board, which he would give to children sitting nearby. He was known as a clever wit.

“Guys like Jimmy are part of a dying breed,” Ronald M. Fino, a former Buffalo mob associate and FBI witness who now works as a PI in Norfolk, Va., tells the newspaper. “The guys who ran things in the Buffalo mob back in the ’60s, there’s only a few of them left.”

“He was tough, he was a strong man,” adds a Buffalo businessman who knew Caci for decades. “Jimmy was a stand-up guy. He was in and out of prisons all his life and never ratted on anybody.”

Caci’s mob career launched after he left Buffalo in the 1970s and went on to grow into a feared mob leader in Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Las Vegas.

Read the complete article at 'Jimmy' Caci, 86, dies; had ties to local mob - City of Buffalo - The Buffalo News.