Gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger captured after 16 years on run

Boston crimelord and FBI informant was inspiration for Jack Nicholson character Frank Costello in Scorcese’s The Departed James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, a notorious Boston gangster on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for his alleged role in 19 murders, has been captured near Los Angeles after living on the run for 16 years. Bulger, 81, was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang and a top-level FBI informant when he fled in January 1995 after being tipped off by a former Boston FBI agent that he was about to be indicted. He was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday evening at an apartment complex in Santa Monica after a period of surveillance, according to a local policeman. Bulger will appear at a federal court in LA facing a series of federal charges including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, narcotics distribution, extortion and money laundering. The FBI has endured a public perception that it had not tried very hard to find Bulger, who became a huge source of embarrassment for the agency after the extent of his crimes and the FBI’s role in overlooking them became public. Prosecutors said he went on the run after being warned by John Connolly Jr, an FBI agent who had made Bulger an FBI informant 20 years earlier. Connolly was convicted of racketeering in May 2002 for protecting Bulger and his cohort, Stephen ‘The Rifleman’ Flemmi, also an FBI informant. Bulger, who was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson’s character Frank Costello in Martin Scorcese’s 2006 crime thriller The Departed, provided the Boston FBI with information on his gang’s main rival, the New England Mob, in an era when bringing down the Mafia was one of the FBI’s top priorities. But the Boston FBI office was sharply criticised when the extent of Bulger’s alleged crimes and his cosy relationship with the FBI became public in the late 1990s. During his years on the run, the FBI received reported sightings of Bulger and his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, from all over the US and parts of Europe. In many of those sightings, investigators could not confirm whether it was actually Bulger who was spotted or simply a lookalike. FBI Massachusetts United States Mark Smith guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 23, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.