Alleged Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger has been arrested in Los Angeles after 16 years on the run, the FBI has reported.
According to the agency, Irish-American Bulger (81) was seized with long-time girlfriend Catherine Greig (60) in Santa Monica yesterday amid a stash of cash and assorted guns. Both are due to appear in court later today.
Bulger was on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list, and he is accused of involvement in 19 murders.
It is believed he ran the Winter Hill gang - an Irish-American mob that operated loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in the Boston area - during the 1970s and 1980s.
According to the Boston Globe website, the announcement of Bulger's arrest came two days after the FBI unveiled a new television advertising campaign aimed at finding the couple.
Someone who saw the advert urging people to be on the lookout for Bulger’s girlfriend tipped off the FBI yesterday that the pair were staying at a house in Santa Monica, according to the website.
Bulger fled Boston in January 1995 after being tipped by a former Boston FBI agent he was about to be indicted. Bulger was a top-echelon FBI informant.
Over the years, the FBI battled 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 jnr, 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 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 relationship with the FBI became public in the late 1990s.
He has been the subject of several books and was an inspiration for Jack Nicholson's character in the 2006 Martin Scorsese film The Departed.
During his years on the run, the FBI received reported sightings of Bulger and Greig from all over the US and parts of Europe. But in September 2002, the FBI received the most reliable tip in three years when a British businessman who had met Bulger eight years earlier said he spotted Bulger on a London street.
After the sighting, the FBI’s multi-agency violent fugitive taskforce in Boston and inspectors from New Scotland Yard scoured London hotels, internet cafes and gyms in search of Bulger. The FBI also released an updated sketch, using the businessman’s description of Bulger as tanned, white-haired and sporting a grey goatee.
Last Monday, the FBI announced a new publicity campaign and accompanying public service ad that asked people, particularly women, to be on the lookout for Greig. The 30-second ad started running on Tuesday in 14 television markets to which Bulger may have had ties.
The new campaign pointed out that Greig had several plastic surgery operations before going on the run and was known to frequent beauty salons. The FBI also was offering a $2 million (€1.4 million) reward for information leading to Bulger’s arrest.
Bulger faces a series of federal charges including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, narcotics distribution, extortion and money laundering. Greig is charged with harbouring a fugitive.
Bulger, nicknamed “Whitey” for his shock of bright platinum hair, grew up in a south Boston housing project and went on to become Boston’s most notorious gangster.
After Bulger fled, he became one of the nation’s most-hunted fugitives, charged in a number of murders that included the killings of businessmen in Florida and Oklahoma.