LIKE THE MOUNTIES….THEY FINALLY GOT THEIR MAN
(….even if it only took them sixteen years to do it….)

The smartest thing James “Whitey” Bulger did, besides skedaddling out of Boston as soon as he found out the law was coming after him, was to just hide in plain sight in Santa Monica, California, while the FBI dithered here and dithered there…. looking for him everywhere….but there.

His is one of the murkier episodes in FBI history, none of it reflecting well upon the Bureau. Besides having a devil’s arrangement with him, by which it ignored his own murderous criminalities, in exchange for his collaboration as an informant against his Italian mafia competitors, the Bureau’s Boston unit found itself seriously compromised because of that relationship. Ultimately, of course, his Bureau handlers were then forced to turn on him too, and the good times of that relationship were soon gone.

Well, besides taking plenty of cash money, he also took his long-time honey, as they headed west for a low profile good life in Santa Monica. But taking his old girl friend along was a fatal mistake. After years of fruitless effort someone at the Bureau finally had the smarts to shift its sights, not on Whitey, but onto his gal-pal, and apply a tried and true American tactic….payola….for information leading to her whereabouts. Sure enough that approach very quickly brought the results they wanted, and before long they had a fix on her….and from that….on Bulger.

Well, if there’s a moral or two from this sorry tale it’s that bad guys do….sometimes….end last; and, if you’re planning to go on the run and disappear make sure you leave any long-time girl friend(s) behind….just pick up a new one with no previous connections to you instead….you might remain at large a lot longer.

CENTURION