James ‘Whitey’ Bulger: How one of America’s most wanted turned FBI informer
James ‘Whitey’ Bulger should have been viewed as a vulnerable prisoner as he was an FBI informant — despised as the lowest form of life in prison, writes .
The story of James ‘Whitey’ Bulger was greatly complicated by his involvement with the FBI over the years.
Bulger, the infamous 89-year-old Irish-American gangster, was found dead in a West Virginia prison cell. He was beaten to death by another inmate.
He had been transferred to the United States Penitentiary (USP) at Hazelton, West Virginia, from a maximum security jail in Oklahoma, only the previous day.
While the USP was a high-security jail, Bulger was held in an adjacent satellite prison, Bruceton Mills, which had minimum security. The wheel-chair-bound-criminal was reportedly murdered, beaten with a sock containing a lock, and his assailants also tried to gouge his eyes out.
He should have been viewed as a vulnerable prisoner, because even though he was a notorious criminal, he was also an FBI informant — despised as the lowest form of life in prison.
Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, to Irish immigrant parents in 1929, James was the second of six children. He got his nickname “Whitey” as a result of his platinum blonde hair. The family moved to South Boston in 1938.
In 1956, Whitey was convicted of a series of bank robberies and sentenced to 20 years in jail. He was considered so dangerous that he spent time in the notorious Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay.
While Whitey was in jail, his younger brother William ‘Billy’ Bulger became an eminent lawyer and was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He went on to serve a record 18 years as president of the State Senate, and over seven years as president of the University of Massachusetts, until his death in 2003.
By then, Whitey had become No 2 on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, second only to Osama Bin Laden.
Whitey Bulger was released from prison in 1965 and returned to Boston, where he became a prominent member of the local mobster Howie Winter’s gang, which was known as the Winter Hill Gang. In 1975, Bulger met John Connolly, a local FBI agent.
He had known Connolly as a kid. One day back in 1948 when Connolly was only eight, the 19-year-old Bulger offered to buy him an ice cream, but Connolly refused. His parents had warned him not to accept gifts from strangers.
“Hey, kid, I’m no stranger!” Bulger said. “Your mother and father are from Ireland. My mother and father are from Ireland. What kind of ice cream do you want?” “Vanilla,” young Connolly replied with smile. He never forgot that meeting.
After going on to earn a law degree, Connolly joined the FBI, and in 1975, he was posted to Boston, where Bulger offered his services as an informant. They established a mutually beneficial arrangement.
After providing Connolly with information to arrest Howie Winter, Bulger took over the Winter Hill Gang. In 1980, he helped FBI to plant surveillance electronic bugs in the headquarters of local Mafia boss, Gennaro “Jerry” Angiulo, who controlled racketeering throughout Massachusetts.
Angiulo, his lawyer, and 22 other mafia mobsters were indicted and eventually convicted in 1983. This allowed Bulger and the Winter Hill gang to take over the racketeering. Angiulo served over 20 years in federal prison.
Bulger had already provided information to cripple the operations of Joe Murray, an Irish-American drug smuggler. Following a tip-off from Bulger four months earlier, the FBI and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), raided Murray’s main warehouse while it was full of cannabis.
Murray had ties with the Provisional IRA in this country, and Bulger tipped off Connolly that Murray was sending seven tons of arms to Ireland on the fishing vessel Valhalla in September 1984. The arms were transferred to the Marita Ann off the coast of Kerry.
The FBI had passed on the information about the arms shipment to the Irish and British authorities. But the Special Branch in this country had a source its own.
Seán O’Callaghan, the IRA informer, had provided information in relation to the Marita Ann. So the Valhalla and the Marita Ann were both being tracked electronically. The Marita Ann was seized as it was heading back to Fenit, and Martin Ferris, the future Sinn Féin Dáil deputy was arrested on board.
John McIntyre, one of the crew of the Valhalla, was arrested in connection with another matter, shortly after his return to Boston. Once in custody, he offered the police details of drug smuggling and the gun running in a desperate attempt to extricate himself from the clutches of those with whom he had become involved.
He informed the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) of a drug shipment due shortly on a freighter, Ramsland. The boat was searched as it entered Boston Harbour on November 16, 1984, and 36 tons of marijuana were seized.
McIntyre named Kevin Weeks, who was closely associated with Bulger, and he also fingered a man named ‘Whitey’ who owned the South Boston Liquor Mart, which he used as a front for criminal activities.
The FBI and the DEA knew this was Bulger, but no attempt was made to arrest him, because he had been providing such valuable information.
Like other people who had given information against Bulger, John McIntyre mysteriously disappeared. Connolly had been warning Bulger. When Connolly retired from the FBI in 1990 after 22 years of service, he was highly celebrated. He had received personal commendations from FBI Directors J Edgar Hoover, and all of his first seven successors.
After Connolly retired, Bulger and his close associate Stephen Flemmi came under real scrutiny. Flemmi was arrested in January 1995, but Bugler managed to flee on the eve of his indictment on racketeering charges.
Kevin Weeks later testified that Connolly had told him to warn Bulger that he was about to be arrested. Connolly was retired for five years by then, so who informed Connolly of the impending arrest? Bulger managed to remain at large until 2011.
In 1997, the FBI admitted under a court order that Bulger had been a “top echelon” informer, and the agency was launching a probe into its corrupt ties with mob informants. Connolly was indicted in December 1999 on charge of alerting Bulger and Flemmi, and he was charged the following year with additional racketeering-related offences.
The distinguished FBI agent was duly convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 10 years in jail. In 2006, Flemmi testified that John McIntyre was murdered after Connolly told them that he was co-operating with the authorities.
Judge Reginald Lindsay ruled in a civil suit that Connolly was the “proximate cause” of McIntyre’s death and the federal government was therefore responsible. He awarded McIntyre’s mother and brother $3.1m in damages.
In 2008, Connolly was convicted of an additional charge of second-degree murder and sentenced to 40 years in jail. A reward of $2m was offered for information leading to Bulger’s capture.
It was claimed by a neighbour in Santa Monica, California. Anna Bjornsdottir, the former Miss Iceland of 1974, recognised him as a neighbour when she was watching a programme about Bulger while on a visit to Ireland.
Bulger was arrested in Santa Monica in 2011. Two years later, he was convicted of 11 murders and racketeering and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms, plus five years to ensure he would never be eligible for parole.
