Jacky Imbert

Jacques Imbert (30 December 1929 – 11 November 2019) was a French gang leader who first came to prominence in 1960s Marseille's underworld, where he was considered "The Last Godfather".

His nickname "Jacky le Mat" means "Jacky the madman" in Provençal.

He was also known as "Pacha" and "Matou".

Imbert was born in Toulouse, the son of an aviation worker with a passion for opera.

Imbert was sentenced to five years in prison in 1947 for an assault on his mother-in-law's lover in a Montpellier bar, but served less than two due to good conduct.

On his time in prison, he later declared:

The first true damned stupidity of my life, I had hit my mother-in-law's lover a little too hard.

I got five years!

The prison, this is the place where I met the biggest number of tossers.

A pack of pathetic ones, of losers.

But I was put in a cell with a true tough guy.

I said, "This is it, my path."

In 1948 Imbert enrolled in the French Army and spent four years in the 15e Régiment de Tirailleurs Sénégalais in Oran, French Algeria.

He was discharged for having a "character incompatible with military regulations".

At the start of the 1950s Imbert joined the Bande des Trois Canards, the "Three Ducks Gang", so-named after the cabaret club which was their den.

The gang specialised in burglaries, hold-ups and racketeering, and was said to have built a cellar in their club in which people who resisted paying protection money would be tortured.

It was while he was in this gang, mainly composed of Marseille Italians, that Imbert met another future gang leader, Tany Zampa, with whom he would forge a close friendship.

Other members were Marius Bertella, Gégène le Manchot (Gégène the one-armed) and Gaétan Alboréo.

It was with them that the young Imbert learned the ropes of the trade, becoming a central element of the team, thanks to his self-control and his determination.

Imbert's legitimate work during this period was as a stunt driver, also taking part in races on Marseille's Old Harbour.

He became known as a womaniser, with two marriages and six mistresses.

The "tough guy" was Gustave Méla, nicknamed "Gu le Terrible", another criminal that would become notorious in the 1960s.

Whilst in prison Imbert decided on the nickname Jacky Le Mat, meaning "Jacky the bottom" or "Jacky the Madman" in the slang of the time.

In 1961 he was convicted of pimping in a case involving Raymond Infantes, the kingpin of Oran's brothels, and condemned to six months in prison.

Infantes had played on his connections to escape a prison sentence while implicating Imbert, who would never forgive him.

Imbert exacted his revenge on Infantes: under cover of the night, he piloted a small Cessna airplane across the Mediterranean to Algeria, kidnapped Infantes and brought him back to Marseille, where he tortured him and demanded a large sum of money as ransom.

Fearing for his life Infantes paid up, and the money permitted Imbert to set up his own gang.

Imbert hired twenty men without Zampa's knowledge and, while appearing to remain under Zampa's control, he began to run his own separate organisation.

On 14 April 1963 Imbert shot a Corsican Parisian boss, Jean-Baptiste Andréani with a shotgun, twice at point-blank range.

Andréani survived.

The motive of the shooting is not clear: It might be that Andréani refused to pay the 500,000 Franc protection money demanded by the "Three Ducks", or it may have been a contract taken out by Andréani's rival, Marcel Francisci.

The "Bande des Trois Canards" disbanded around 1965.

Mob boss Antoine Guérini was assassinated in a drive-by on 23 June 1967.

Imbert is suspected of shooting him on Zampa's orders, as Zampa was still Imbert's boss.

The murder was supported by the Milieu gang, who wanted revenge for the killing of Robert Blémant by the Guérini clan.

In 1968 Imbert was put on the Police organised crime file with the number 909/68.

He also became a trotting driver with his friend Alain Delon in 1968, and in 1973 he became the French champion.

On 1 February 1977 Imbert survived a murder attempt by Tony Zampa's crew..

He was shot many times and doctors removed twenty-two projectiles, including seven bullets, from his body.

His right arm remained paralysed as a result of the attack; though the French newspaper Le Monde wrote, "Small matter, he learned to shoot with the left".