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South Boston's Godfather: The FBI Cover That Made Bulger Untouchable
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Whitey Bulger didn't just outwit the FBI — the FBI made him possible. This is the story of how one corrupt handler, one broken system, and nineteen murders went unanswered for decades.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Here's what makes the Bulger case different from every other American mob story. The FBI didn't just fail to stop him.
Bulger's path to the top of the Winter Hill Gang wasn't fast, but it was methodical. By the nineteen seventies, he had positioned himself as a serious figure in Boston's underworld.
The key point here is Connolly's motivation. This wasn't simply a field agent maintaining an informant relationship.
This is where the story moves beyond one corrupt agent. Judge Mark Wolf, presiding over related federal proceedings in the nineteen nineties, concluded that more than a dozen FBI agents, supervisors, and Department of Justice officials had been engaged in systematic institutional corruption.
There was another layer to Bulger's protection, and it operated in plain sight. His brother Billy wasn't a criminal.
By the early nineteen nineties, federal investigations were finally closing in. A racketeering indictment was being prepared.
The trial in two thousand thirteen was held in federal court in Boston. The government's case relied heavily on confessed killers who had made deals for reduced sentences.
Martin Scorsese's film The Departed brought a version of this story to a mainstream audience in two thousand six. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
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