The Daily Blog

Whitey Bulger Arrested: Infamous Mob Fugitive Caught In Santa Monica.

James “Whitey” Bulger, the infamous Boston mob boss, has been arrested, the Los Angeles Times reports.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Bulger was caught without incident by the FBI in Santa Monica.

Bulger vanished from Boston in 1995. After he disappeared, he was charged with 19 counts of murder.

Just days ago the FBI launched a media blitz to find the 81-year-old Bulger.

More from the Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — James “Whitey” Bulger, a notorious Boston gangster on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list for his alleged role in 19 murders, was captured Wednesday near Los Angeles after living on the run for 16 years, authorities said.

Bulger, 81, was arrested in the early evening at a residence in Santa Monica, said a law enforcement official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case. The arrest was based on a tip from the recent publicity campaign that federal authorities had regenerated, according to the official.

Bulger will make an appearance in Los Angeles federal court Thursday. He faces a series of federal charges including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, narcotics distribution, extortion and money laundering.

The FBI informed Santa Monica police late Wednesday about the arrest, said police Sgt. Rudy Flores. The FBI had been conducting a surveillance operation in the area where the arrest was made, Flores said. He gave no details of the arrest.

Bulger was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang when he fled in January 1995 after being tipped by a former Boston FBI agent that 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 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 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 national priorities.

But the Boston FBI office was sharply criticized when the extent of Bulger’s alleged crimes and his cozy relationship with the FBI became public in the late 1990s.

He has been the subject of several books and was an inspiration for the 2006 Martin Scorsese film “The Departed.”

During his years on the run, the FBI received reported sightings of Bulger and his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, from all over the United States 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.

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 multiagency violent fugitive task force 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 tan, white-haired and sporting a gray goatee.

On Monday the FBI on 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 Tuesday in 14 television markets to which Bulger may have ties and will air during programs popular with women roughly Greig’s age.

The new campaign pointed out that Greig had several plastic surgeries before going on the lam and was known to frequent beauty salons.

Bulger, nicknamed “Whitey” for his shock of bright platinum hair, grew up in a gritty South Boston housing project, and went on to become Boston’s most notorious gangster. He led the violent Winter Hill Gang, a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in the Boston area.

After he fled, he became one of the nation’s most-hunted fugitives, charged in connection with 21 murders, including the slayings of businessmen in Florida and Oklahoma. With a place next to Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list, he had a $1 million reward on his head.

Bulger’s younger brother, William, was one of the most powerful politicians in the state, leading the Massachusetts Senate for 17 years and later serving as president of the University of Massachusetts for seven years.

For many years, William Bulger was able to avoid any tarnish from his brother’s alleged crimes. But in August 2003, William Bulger resigned his post as president of UMass amid pressure from Gov. Mitt Romney and Attorney General Thomas Reilly.

His resignation came two months after he testified about his brother before a congressional committee. William Bulger said he spoke to his brother shortly after he went on the run in 1995, but said he had not heard from him since and did not know where he was hiding out.

The committee, in a draft report issued in 2003, blasted the FBI for its use of Bulger and other criminals as informants, calling it “one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement.”

127 Busted in Largest Mafia Roundup in FBI History.

Federal authorities today announced what they called the largest mob roundup in FBI history: the indictment of 127 people, including key Mafia figures from the New York, New Jersey and New England crime families, on charges ranging from murder and racketeering to gambling, extortion and loan-sharking.

About 800 law enforcement members from the FBI, the Secret Service, the U.S. Labor Department, and state and local law enforcement today arrested 121 people who were named in 16 indictments filed in different jurisdictions. Four others were already in custody, and one member of the Colombo family was arrested in Italy.

The indictments were aimed at all five New York crime families — the Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, Bonanno and Luchese families — along with the New England Patriarca family and the New Jersey Decavalcante family.

“Today’s arrests mark an important and encouraging step forward in disrupting La Cosa Nostra operations,” Attorney General Eric Holder said at a press conference this morning in Brooklyn, N.Y. “But the reality is that our battle against organized-crime enterprises is far from over.”

Authorities said the indictments resulted from years of investigations, including the use of wiretaps and cooperating informants.”These cases are the cumulative results of years of investigative work, including the development of key cooperating witnesses, a trend that has definitely been tilting in law enforcement’s favor,” said Janice Fedarcyk, head of the New York FBI. “The vow of silence that is part of the oath Omerta is more myth than reality today.”

In all, authorities said 91 members and associates of seven crime families were indicted, along with 36 others who were charged with “associated criminal activity.” More than 30 were “made men.”

The higher-profile mob figures indicted included Luigi Manocchio, 83, the former boss of New England’s Patriarca crime family; Andrew Russo, street boss of the Colombo family; Benjamin Castellazzo, 73, acting underboss of the Colombo family; Richard Fusco, 74, consigliere of the Colombo family; Joseph Corozzo, 69, the consigliere of the Gambino family; and Bartolomeo Vernace, 61, a member of the Gambino family administration.

“Some of the allegations involve classic mob hits to eliminate perceived rivals,” Holder said. “Others involve truly senseless murders. In one instance, a victim was allegedly shot and killed during a botched robbery attempt. And two other murder victims allegedly were shot in a public bar because of a dispute over a spilled drink.”But not all are convinced the case is what the government says it is.

Stuart P. Slotnick, a New York defense attorney with the firm Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney and a former prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, is skeptical, saying: “With regard to organized crime, there may be loose affiliations with people who know each other, but it’s not really a mob as portrayed by the Department of Justice and the media.”

He facetiously added that he thought he had heard the Justice Department say before that it had eliminated the Mafia.

And he went on to say that the cases can be tough to win when the government relies on informants, who are career criminals who “don’t know the difference between the truth and a lie and they’ll say anything that the U.S. Attorney’s Office wants them to say, including making up stories of being in the mob, only to save themselves from a significant jail sentence.”

Fedarcyk conceded at the press conference that getting rid of the mob for good has been no easy task.

“The FBI has waged a largely successful campaign against the mob over the last three decades, but the mob has shown itself to be resilient and persistent,” she said. “Arresting and convicting the hierarchy of the five families several times over has not eradicated the problem.”

Whatever the case, the feds today unsealed hundreds of pages of indictments in four jurisdictions that included the classic mob allegations: extortion, running gambling operations and illegal card games, murder, shakedowns of unions and union members, and extortion of businesses for protection.

In Newark, an indictment charged 14 people with racketeering and extortion of Local 1235 of the International Longshoremen’s Association and other dockworkers locals. Some defendants are former and current union officials with alleged ties to the Genovese family, authorities charged.

Included in the indictment were allegations that the mobsters extorted money from longshoremen around Christmastime when they received a portion of royalty payments made by shipping companies using the ports of New York and New Jersey.

Then there were the allegations of murder.

Authorities alleged that Colombo street boss Russo was involved in the 1993 death of Colombo family underboss Joseph Scopo, who was shot in the passenger seat of a car outside his home in Ozone Park in Queens, N.Y.

In a much earlier case dating back to 1981, authorities alleged that Vernace, a member of the current Gambino family administration, was involved in the double murder of bar owners Richard Godkin and John D’Agnese inside the Shamrock Bar in the Woodhaven neighborhood of Queens. The incident reportedly stemmed from a spilled drink.

Authorities said that D’Agnese died from a single gunshot to the face, and Godkin was struck with a point-blank gunshot to the chest.

Authorities alleged that the mobsters went to great lengths to conceal their activities and “proceeds from those activities” and in particular said of the Gambino crime family:”That conduct included a commitment to murdering persons, particularly members or associates of organized crime families, who were perceived as potential witnesses against members and associates of the enterprise.”

In New England, authorities alleged that mobsters used intimidation and threats of violence to get monthly cash protection payments from adult bookstores and strip clubs in Providence, R.I.

FBI director Robert S. Mueller III said in a statement: “Some believe organized crime is a thing of the past; unfortunately, there are still people who extort, intimidate, and victimize innocent Americans. The costs legitimate businesses are forced to pay are ultimately borne by American consumers nationwide.”