“All my life I’d been loyal to the mob. It never crossed my mind to be an informer, a pigeon for the cops. I’d rather die.” Vinnie Teresa, 1969.
New England Crime Family mobster Vinnie Teresa claimed in his memoir that he only decided to cooperate with the federal government because his Mafia associates had swindled all his money while he was in prison and left family in poverty. Now, Teresa was a notorious BS’er from way back and his books are full of exaggerations and lies, but I don’t think anyone’s ever taken a hard look at when Teresa truly began to cooperate.
But looking at FBI documents from the 1960s, it appears that Teresa was feeding confidential information to federal agents since at least 1962. I’m going to write in more detail about this later, but it seems to me that Boston-area informant “BS 812” and Teresa are one and the same.
Here’s how I got there.
“BS 812” was described as follows:
“A criminal source who was first contacted in January 1963 (sic), was discontinued in August, 1968, after having furnished extensive information regarding organized crime and gambling matters in a northeastern city. He was discontinued as an informant after it was learned that he was involved in major interstate transportation of stolen property violation. He was later arrested, convicted and sentenced to prison.”
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... 0&tab=page
On the surface, this sounds a lot like Teresa. Teresa was arrested for selling stolen bonds around August 1968 and was later convicted.
There are a few more clues connecting “BS 812” and Teresa.
If you look at the old redacted FBI documents (as opposed to the newest FBI releases that leave informant symbol codes unredacted), informant symbol code “BS 812” was never redacted by government censors. That generally only used to occur when the informant’s identity was known to the public and the government wasn’t concerned about keeping his identity secret. When these FBI documents were released in the 1990s, Teresa’s cooperation was well known and there was no reason to be concerned about his safety.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... 2BS_812%22
Another indication that points to Teresa is that “BS 812” was handled by FBI agent John Kehoe. According to Teresa’s memoir, Kehoe was same agent that met with him in prison and helped to persuade him to cooperate in 1969.
In another FBI document, “BS 812” discloses information about Gambino Crime Family Caporegime Joe Paterno from New Jersey. This is a little unusual for a New England mobster to know anything about a mid-level mobster from Newark. In his memoir, Teresa relates being called on the carpet by his mob superiors for beating up an associate of Paterno.
In another instance, “BS 812” talks about Teresa’s activities in Atlanta which wouldn’t be known to many individuals. There are a few other small links between the two individuals which I won’t get into here.
I’m not sure what happened to Teresa in 1962 that might have influenced him to become a CI but he was beefing with Jerry Angiulo around this time.
Maybe I’m late to the party and it’s already been publicly confirmed that “BS 812” and Teresa are one and the same, and that Teresa was talking before 1970, but I’m not aware of it. As others of said, Teresa wouldn’t be able to get his books published under today’s scrutiny.
(William Roemer also misled readers about when Richard Cain (CG 7177) first began to cooperate. Roemer, his FBI handler, implied that Cain didn’t begin to cooperate until sometime in the early 1970s. But that’s untrue. This FBI document shows that Cain was sharing confidential information as early 1967. (In fact, this was backed up by Richard Cain’s brother who wrote a book called the Tangled Web.) He was only dropped because he was arrested in connection to a bank robbery. Cain was activated again in the early 1970s when he partnered up with Sam Giancana in Mexico.)
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... 1&tab=page“All my life I’d been loyal to the mob. It never crossed my mind to be an informer, a pigeon for the cops. I’d rather die.” Vinnie Teresa, 1969.
New England Crime Family mobster Vinnie Teresa claimed in his memoir that he only decided to cooperate with the federal government because his Mafia associates had swindled all his money while he was in prison and left family in poverty. Now, Teresa was a notorious BS’er from way back and his books are full of exaggerations and lies, but I don’t think anyone’s ever taken a hard look at when Teresa truly began to cooperate.
But looking at FBI documents from the 1960s, it appears that Teresa was feeding confidential information to federal agents since at least 1962. I’m going to write in more detail about this later, but it seems to me that Boston-area informant “BS 812” and Teresa are one and the same.
Here’s how I got there.
“BS 812” was described as follows:
“A criminal source who was first contacted in January 1963 (sic), was discontinued in August, 1968, after having furnished extensive information regarding organized crime and gambling matters in a northeastern city. He was discontinued as an informant after it was learned that he was involved in major interstate transportation of stolen property violation. He was later arrested, convicted and sentenced to prison.”
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=148545&search=124-10274-10041#relPageId=100&tab=page
On the surface, this sounds a lot like Teresa. Teresa was arrested for selling stolen bonds around August 1968 and was later convicted.
There are a few more clues connecting “BS 812” and Teresa.
If you look at the old redacted FBI documents (as opposed to the newest FBI releases that leave informant symbol codes unredacted), informant symbol code “BS 812” was never redacted by government censors. That generally only used to occur when the informant’s identity was known to the public and the government wasn’t concerned about keeping his identity secret. When these FBI documents were released in the 1990s, Teresa’s cooperation was well known and there was no reason to be concerned about his safety.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=69983&relPageId=4&search=%22BS_812%22
Another indication that points to Teresa is that “BS 812” was handled by FBI agent John Kehoe. According to Teresa’s memoir, Kehoe was same agent that met with him in prison and helped to persuade him to cooperate in 1969.
In another FBI document, “BS 812” discloses information about Gambino Crime Family Caporegime Joe Paterno from New Jersey. This is a little unusual for a New England mobster to know anything about a mid-level mobster from Newark. In his memoir, Teresa relates being called on the carpet by his mob superiors for beating up an associate of Paterno.
In another instance, “BS 812” talks about Teresa’s activities in Atlanta which wouldn’t be known to many individuals. There are a few other small links between the two individuals which I won’t get into here.
I’m not sure what happened to Teresa in 1962 that might have influenced him to become a CI but he was beefing with Jerry Angiulo around this time.
Maybe I’m late to the party and it’s already been publicly confirmed that “BS 812” and Teresa are one and the same, and that Teresa was talking before 1970, but I’m not aware of it. As others of said, Teresa wouldn’t be able to get his books published under today’s scrutiny.
(William Roemer also misled readers about when Richard Cain (CG 7177) first began to cooperate. Roemer, his FBI handler, implied that Cain didn’t begin to cooperate until sometime in the early 1970s. But that’s untrue. This FBI document shows that Cain was sharing confidential information as early 1967. (In fact, this was backed up by Richard Cain’s brother who wrote a book called the Tangled Web.) He was only dropped because he was arrested in connection to a bank robbery. Cain was activated again in the early 1970s when he partnered up with Sam Giancana in Mexico.)
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=148545&search=%22bs_812%22#relPageId=101&tab=page