MOB BOSS WHITEY BULGER CAUGHT IN CALIFORNIA

DAPPER DON

THE DEPARTED

NOTORIOUS mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger has been sensationally captured after nearly 16-years on the run. 

The FBI caught up with  onetime pooh-bah of the notorious Winter Hill Gang - and inspiration for Jack Nicholson's whacked out gang chief in The Departed - living happily with his longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig, 60, in Santa Monica, CA. 

He was arrested without incident and it's thought he will now be returned to Boston where he is wanted for the murders of 19 men and women along with a litany of other charges. 

Bulger has been on the run for 16-years after fleeing in January 1995 when he was tipped by a former Boston FBI agent that he was about to be indicted.
Nicknamed ‘Whitey’ because of his shock of bright platinum hair, grew up in a gritty South Boston housing project and spent time in the notorious Alcatraz prison when he a youngster.  

On his release he rose to the top of the city's violent Winter Hill Gang, a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in the city.

But what was unknown for many years, was at the same time as his reign of terror on the streets, Bulger was a top echelon FBI informant who provided information on his gang's main rival, the New England Mob. 

Using his unique position he tightened his vice like grip on the city's underworld, until the extent of his crimes and his close relationship with the G-men became clear. 

Just as the were about to swoop he was 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.

He became a huge source of embarrassment for the agency as they battled a public perception that it had not tried very hard to find him.

Now it looks like he will finally face justice after a tip from the public finally revealed his whereabouts.  

It appears a high profile campaign, including a TV ad been launched during programs popular with women roughly Greig's age - pointing out that she had several plastic surgeries and regularly went to beauty salons, worked. 

Lets just hope they don't lose him again.
* CAPTURE BRINGS A SMILE TO BOSTON HERALD MAN
*WHITEY'S REIGN OF TERROR