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James "Whitey" Bulger, caught in Boston after 16 years on the run.
Jokerman
EverythingEverywhereRegistered User regular
EverythingEverywhereRegistered User regular
Sorry if this is old news already, but I thought this was pretty amazing.
This guy was a top ten fugitive for over 16 years. What the fuck, FBI?
Wikipedia wrote:James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger, Jr. (born September 3, 1929) is an alleged former crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang based in Somerville, Massachusetts in the United States. He also served as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a controversial arrangement that allowed him to continue his criminal activities. The disclosure in 1997 by The Boston Globe of the involvement of federal agents with Bulger was a major embarrassment for the agency. [3]
On August 19, 1998, Bulger became the 458th person added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. He was wanted for racketeering (under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)), 19 counts of murder, extortion, money laundering, conspiracy and narcotics distribution. On June 22, 2011, he was arrested at the apartment he had lived in for fifteen years in Santa Monica, California, along with his girlfriend Catherine Greig. He was 81 years old at the time of his arrest[2][4][5], and supposedly in poor health.[6] Bulger is the older brother of William "Billy" Bulger, former President of the Massachusetts State Senate and a former President of the University of Massachusetts.
This guy was a top ten fugitive for over 16 years. What the fuck, FBI?
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I'm also really amused to see that Obama's campaign strategy seems to be to take out people on the FBI most wanted list faster than the FBI can fill it back up. I will laugh my ass off if he manages to actually get the number of people on that list down to zero. He seems to be doing the same thing with Al Quaeda's leadership.
Caught by a bunch of old ladies.
Wow.
Well lets all hope that superobama loses reelection so he can spend his time personally doing this anti-crime thing, like he did with osama bin ladin and 'whitey'.
Also i find this whole thing kind of odd. Why would the FBI still be looking for the guy the last 15 years if he was granted immunity in 1997 for informing?
If they really did let him go and they have no new charges then they are reneging on the promise of immunity and thats a very bad thing for the government to do.
Problem is he up and disappeared, which pretty logically makes the arrangement null and void.
Anyways, what was the deal on his informing? You can usually get immunity for crimes you did commit, but was he wanted for those or for crimes he committed after the fact?
What you get immunity for depends on what you did. Immunity on murder charges is extremely rare.
Reading through his wiki, it doesn't seem like he had immunity anyways. He turned into an informant, but still appears to have continued criminal activities. There was a lawsuit against the feds over it, where they were found to have been turning a blind eye to it, but that's why he's under arrest now. Not sure what the whole "oh god we're going back on our word" angle is.
Eventually this was discovered. The FBI handler is already in jail, but somebody tipped Whitey off and he scarpered before they could pick him up.
Actually I heard an interview on NPR yesterday that seemed to indicate that this is suprisingly effective - rich mafia dudes look pretty nondescript. "Just another short, fat Italian guy in Jersey" was how the FBI guy they interviewed put it. But their trophy wives? Chosen to stand out from a crowd. Apparently it's a pretty common strategy to track these guys down that way.
Apparently it worked, too.
Though if they added another, that'd be awesome. (Actually, if they add another so soon after Mogilevich, that may be heralding a shift in the focus of the list. It started out with bank robbers and such, then switched to radicals, and it's really only since the 80's that the focus has been on violent offenders.)
The Boston FBI office was infamously corrupt. To the point that DoJ had to clean house pretty thoroughly.
Wrong "mafia."
There isn't any sort of internal rank. It's just ten guys.
It's pretty much guaranteed that it won't be a terrorist because a separate list for terrorists was created after Osama was added.
Seems like it would save us a lot of state resources.
Wait so the president shouldn't urge the FBI to catch people they're looking for? Or lower crime rates in general?
Or order a SEAL team confirm the location of a mass murderer that targets US citizens and take him down?
You're making the tea party look intelligent . Think about that.
The FBI doesn't want to imply that the murder of X's mother was less important than the murders of y's mother.
Because that money would definitely have gone somewhere important and worthwhile if this one criminal had had the decency to get himself killed.
It's not really meant to be a sensible notion. Obviously the justice system is important, and due process should be followed.
Fix'd
Yes I'm sure he settled down and lead a completely legitimate life while on the run from the law. He certianly didn't have any criminal connections at all.
Don't forget the law and order episode!
It is good to see a government police agency actually doing it's job well and it getting good publicity. Then again that has always been the point of this list.
Now if only the CIA could secure the internet... wait that is not their job.
Basically if it wasn't for this guy trying to track down and kill my grandfather for stealing money then he would have never fled to texas. my mom would have never met my dad. And I would never have been born. So thanks Whitey Bulger!
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