Once departed, now extradited

By Linda Felaco

James “Whitey” Bulger, inspiration for the character of Frank Costello in the Martin Scorcese film The Departed and, along with his brother William, the Showtime series (filmed all over Rhode Island) Brotherhood, is en route to Boston after 16 years on the run to face charges including 19 murders. Bulger, who moved to the top of the FBI’s most wanted list after the assassination of Osama bin Laden earlier this year, is perhaps best known in Rhode Island for having displaced the Patriarca family as the leading New England crime family by either killing or informing to the FBI on high-ranking members.



Rembrandt's "Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee:
Part of the Gardner Museum loot



According to ABC News, it appears that Bulger has been “hiding in plain sight” in an apartment on the Santa Monica pier since shortly after his disappearance in 1995. In response to an anonymous tip, the FBI used a ruse to lure him out of the apartment and arrested him without incident Wednesday night. Bulger is expected to be arraigned in the federal courthouse in Boston at 4 p.m. today. For security reasons, the FBI isn’t providing any details about the anonymous tipster, nor will they say one way or the other whether that person will receive the $2 million reward the FBI had offered for information leading to Bulger’s arrest.



Speculation swirls that Bulger’s arrest may finally solve the biggest art heist in U.S. history, the 1990 theft from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of artworks valued at a total of $500 million. Although no evidence links Bulger directly to the crime, it’s believed that as the leading crime figure in Boston at the time, the theft could not have been carried out without his knowledge.