01x07 - Hunting Whitey Bulger

[bunniefuu]

- James Whitey Bulger, one
of the most infamous mobsters

of the 20th century.

- I tell you,
this case had everything.

There's m*rder, drugs,
international organized crime.

- Whitey Bulger is charged
with murdering 19 people.

- He had been on the run
for about 15 years.

- Bulger had money.

He had fake IDs.

He had connections.

- The FBI is getting their sh*t
kicked out of them

constantly
in the media in Boston.

- I believe that he's
on the ten most wanted list

because
they're not looking for him,

but they want us
to think that they are.

- People truly thought
that we didn't wanna find him.

[dramatic music]

- In the FBI, we make
a lot of headlines.

♪

Drug busts,

mob stings,

t*rror1st takedowns.

- Get down! Get down!

- We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.

- Freeze!
- FBI.

- FBI!
- Action!

- But they don't know
the half of it.

[indistinct radio chatter]

What really goes down,

we save that for each other

when we're talking
agent to agent.

♪

This is "FBI True."

[tense music]

♪

- Cindy Coppola is
a 23-year veteran of the FBI.

She worked on cases
that included

organized crime and terrorism

and took part in
multinational investigations

into drug trafficking
and money laundering.

Coppola finished her career
with the Los Angeles Division,

running two offices,
supervising investigations

and providing undercover
security for special events.

- So you guys didn't know
each other before 2009?

How did this come up
that you guys were asked

to be part
of the Whitey Bulger case?

- I got a call from
the assistant special agent

in charge of the Boston office.

And she flat-out asked me,
she said,

"Would you be interested
in a temporary duty assignment

to Boston to try
and resolve the Bulger case?"

- A man so dangerous
that he joined Osama bin Laden

at the top
of the FBI's most wanted list.

- This guy that's been charged
with 19 murders,

he had been on the run
for about 15 years.

- Tommy MacDonald
joined the FBI in 1996

and earned a law degree
in 2000.

He worked with the NYPD on the
joint bank robbery task force

and violent crime squad
in New York City.

He retired as a recruiter

for the bureau's
Boston field office.

- And, Phil, what about you?

- I was getting toward
the end of my career.

I liked the case.
I knew the case.

And I tell you, one of the
things I always wanted to do

was arrest
an FBI top ten fugitive.

- Phil Torsney worked
for the National Park Service

before becoming an FBI agent
in 1984.

He served on the SWAT team

and worked on the violent
crime squad in Cleveland

before joining
the city's newly formed

fugitive task force,
where he worked for 25 years.

- After we both got the call,
we talked.

I didn't know him before.

He said, "Hey, you know,
we're gonna catch this guy.

I'm not going back here
just to sit on my a*s."

And I'm like, "I'm not either."
We knew that.

- I don't think it's common for
two, like, violent crime agents

to be plucked out
of their field office

and brought to a different city
'cause, you know,

most agents who work
fugitives top ten cases,

that's one of 40 or 50 cases
on your case roster.

You get pulled
in different directions.

This was a great opportunity
to come to Boston

and to work one case,

and that was what really
excited me about that.

- I could tell talking
to MacDonald

that we were gonna
be rocking and rolling.

- What was
Bulger's background?

What was he known for?
- He grew up in South Boston.

Big family.
Big Irish-Catholic family.

But he took the criminal road.

He eventually got caught
for bank robbery,

goes away to Atlanta,
Lewisburg,

as well as other federal
prisons, including Alcatraz.

When he gets out,
he comes back to South Boston

after a bunch of years
in prison,

and he's in the game...

the Irish g*ng kind of game.

The Winter Hill g*ng,
Bulger became a member of that.

He hooks up with some
other criminals in the area,

and there's a lot of murders.

There's fighting among several
Irish mobs and Italian mobs,

and people are getting k*lled.

And there's a fight on
for who's in control

of South Boston.

- Yeah, back in that time,
the FBI's main focus

was the Italian mob...

having a source,
an informant that can report,

you know, real time on the
activities of the Italian mob.

And it was a high priority
back then.

- It sure was.

Bulger eventually was
approached by an FBI agent

and began to cooperate.

And Bulger, I believe,
saw an opportunity.

He could help out
his end of things

by helping give information
on the Italian mob,

get them out of the picture
through the FBI.

You know, he was a smart guy.

He knew
how to run this business,

even though
it was a criminal business.

So there was
a cooperation there,

but it sort of went both ways.

John Connolly was
the FBI agent for Bulger.

Bulger was influencing

and getting information
from Connolly.

And information didn't go
like it should have gone.

Didn't turn out well.

- FBI agent John Connolly,
assigned to handle Bulger,

eventually went to work
for the mob boss.

- Were you ever aware of a case

where there was a m*rder
committed by Whitey Bulger?

Wasn't it your obligation

as a law enforcement officer?
- It would be my obligation.

From the very beginning,
it's understood.

- Did you ever ask them
if they k*lled anyone?

- Well, why would I do that?
He was a source.

- He had worked
as an informant for the FBI,

but it was the Massachusetts
State Police and the DEA

who were conducting
an investigation

in an effort to obtain
a federal indictment

for extortion, racketeering,
and drug charges.

- Bulger is tipped off
by John Connolly

that an indictment...
- Oh, sh*t.

Yeah.
- Was coming out.

He knew he'd had to go
on the run at some point.

Bulger had money.

He had fake IDs.

He had connections.

And the money's all in cash,

which makes it a lot easier
to go on the run.

- He was prepared.

- And all of a sudden,
he skips town

once we're going
to look to lock him up.

- And eventually,
Connolly got caught for that,

the corruption,
and that caused

a lot of problems there.

- I am innocent
of the malicious charges...

- You throw in an FBI agent
who's convicted of corruption

right in federal court
in Boston.

You throw that in there,
and you got a hot mess.

- Boston FBI office
paid for it for a while.

- There was a lot of friction
between the DEA

and the state police
and the FBI.

- Shame, like a black eye
for us unfortunately.

- For the FBI in general,
we had to catch this guy,

you know, to show the public
that we do our job

and get it done no matter what
the problems were in the past.

- It seemed
as if Bulger had disappeared

from the face of the Earth

except for the alleged
sightings all over the world.

- When I got that phone call
in 2009 from Noreen Gleason,

who was
the assistant special agent

in charge
of the Boston office,

you know,
the logical question was,

"How long am I gonna be

on temporary assignment
to Boston?"

She said,
"We'll give you three years

unless you catch him
before that."

- Doing a case like this
is almost like a cold case.

I mean,
so what were your first steps?

You guys get up there,
and what did you do?

What was your game plan?
- Oh.

I think Boston was really
fatigued when we got there.

I mean, there was
no more task force in place,

so they were looking
to redesign the FBI's approach

to working the case.

- Good afternoon, everyone.

Just briefly, we have
a dedicated task force

solely to look
for James Bulger.

Its mission is to locate
and apprehend Bulger

and as well as seeking
anyone who harbors, A*DS,

or abets his continuing
to be a fugitive.

- Bulger skipped town
in December of '94.

He was indicted for extortion.

It wasn't
until they got cooperation

from that investigation that
they superseded the indictment

and he was charged
with 19 murders.

That made him go
from the minor leagues

to the major league
all-star game

in terms of, like, fugitives
you got to try and find.

I tell you,
this case had everything.

It has m*rder.

- Charged
with murdering 19 people.

- It has drugs,
international organized crime.

It has corruption.

Essentially was
a one-person crime wave

in the city of Boston
for decades.

There have been good work done
before us

by the state troopers, the DEA,

the FBI.
- Sure.

- We didn't have to go back
and recreate the wheel

with a lot of this stuff.

One of our goals was
to knock on doors

and talk to people,
even to stir this thing up

and take some people out
of their comfort zone.

They were truly people
in South Boston

when we were knocking on doors
that would say to us,

"You're not really looking
for that guy."

I mean, people truly thought
that we didn't want to find him

just because of stuff
he might be able to bring up

about other corruption
and that kind of thing.

- I believe that he's
on the ten most wanted list

because
they're not looking for him,

but they want us
to think that they are.

- That wasn't the case at all.

They brought us in
to figure this thing out.

- We sat down with
the U.S. attorney's office,

and there was
a prosecutor assigned

to help us find Whitey Bulger.

And we wanted
to get a full idea

of the key family members.

- I thought his brother
was a politician in that area.

- Yeah, William Bulger,
Billy Bulger,

was a really well-known
politician in Massachusetts.

- Well, he's the president
of the state senate

in Massachusetts,
and then

he was president
of UMass Boston after that.

So he's a well-known person
in Boston.

- Let me let you describe
yourself as others see you.

- Autocratic, dictatorial.

Those are the...
- Boss.

- Boss.
Those kinds of things.

- Did you guys ever talk to him

as part of your investigation?
- We tried.

- Yeah.
- Yeah?

- Billy never even came
to the door.

Both times his wife did,
and she just said

he wasn't at home even though
his car was in the driveway.

It's one of those things.
- Yeah.

- So you leave a card and
you hope you get a call back,

And you do. You get a call back
from his attorney.

The exact words
from their attorney was,

"We're not gonna do anything

to help the FBI
find James Bulger."

- He's my brother.
I care about him.

- There were certain people
it was frowned on

to talk to them,
but we went in.

We did an interview
of Kevin Weeks.

- And who was he again?
I can't...

- Kevin Weeks was
Bulger's right hand man.

We went and knocked
on his door.

Came the door.
Let us in.

- We interviewed Kevin Weeks
on a Sunday

at halftime
of a Patriots game.

And he was sitting on his couch
with an afghan on.

- Yeah. We're up there
for an hour or so.

And he described to us a time
when Bulger actually got

physically violent with his
girlfriend, Catherine Greig.

- He was choking her.
- Yeah, choking her.

She's the one
he goes on the lam with.

Weeks said, "Maybe something
could have happened to her

based on Bugler's temper
and this confrontation I saw."

We started talking about that.

Bulger had a violent temper,

and a couple of the murders
involved women.

- Bulger routinely performed
or ordered executions,

some at close range,
some with a hail of b*ll*ts,

and at least one
by strangulation.

- We're starting to think,
you know, what if...

what if she either dies
of natural causes

or something violent
happens to her

and she washes up somewhere,
her body's found?

We start to think that,
you know, that's a possibility.

And we need something to
identify her if she's deceased.

We have no fingerprints.

She's got no real identifiers.

We have old, fuzzy,
grainy pictures of her.

But we knew
she had had breast implants.

- Quick note
on Catherine Greig:

her background quickly is

very vain
about her appearance,

had plastic surgery
prior to flight.

- We talked about this
over breakfast.

You know, there's serial
numbers on those implants

because all the issues going
back with failures on implants

and lawsuits
and that kind of thing.

If she gets autopsied,

those numbers should be
in an autopsy report.

Let's see if we can
get those serial numbers.

- We had developed
some contacts

that were associated with...

- The Greig family?
- The Greig family, yeah.

And so,
we ascertained from them

that she had had a procedure
done at a hospital in Boston...

Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

So we got a subpoena,
you know,

to see if that hospital
had any records,

and hopefully,
one of those record returns

would be the implant number
that we were hoping to get.

Unfortunately,
we got one return

for a procedure she had gotten

that was unrelated
to the breast.

So then we decided, you know
what, let's hustle here.

Let's think outside the box.

Let's serve the doctor

who did that one procedure
we know about now.

Let's serve him
with a subpoena.

Maybe she got something
done outpatient,

not in the hospital.

Unfortunately,
he died of melanoma in 2000.

- Ah, shame.
- So that was a dead end.

So just on a halfcourt shot,

served a subpoena
on the plastic surgeon

that took over his practice
in Newton, Mass.

About two or three weeks
later, we got the call saying,

"Hey, we actually found records

for Catherine Greig."
- Awesome.

- Literally, that's all it was,
was a phone call from a doctor,

saying, "Hey, Agent,
we got these records.

"She had breast implants.

We have the number
that you're looking for."

But on the same phone call,
he asked me,

"Do you want the photos too?"

This was a female fugitive

that we really had
no great photos of.

That ended up
being the ticket.

Like, forget
about the serial number.

These photos
were highly detailed.

- Gamechanger.
both: Gamechanger.

- The way we were able
to use the photographs

to get the tip we needed
ended up being really

what turned the case
in our favor.

We decided, you know, we can't
just hold a press conference

and put the photos out there,

'cause if Bulger's on the run
and he sees them

and he's got money, they'll
just take off and bounce

to another location
and start all over again.

And she had a lot
of plastic surgery done,

so why would she stop
doing that while on the run?

So let's get those photos out

to the plastic surgery
practices

all across the United States,
all across the world,

with the hope that maybe
a nurse or a doctor recognizes,

you know, our fugitive
and can give us a call.

And we can identify them
living under an alias somewhere

and end the case.

So that's what we did.

We took an ad out
in the "Sports Illustrated"

for plastic surgery:
"The Plastic Surgery News."

- Oh, really?
There is such a thing?

There's, like, a newspaper?
[laughs]

- The FBI spent
a couple thousand dollars

to take out this ad.

This is when we first...

first had the photos.
- Oh, that's awesome.

- We want to release them to
the plastic surgery community,

and it went out nationally.

And we got
some really good tips.

We got one great tip from
Victoria, British Columbia,

which was an area

where we really thought
Bulger might be in Canada.

- Why?
- He had traveled to Canada.

Safety deposit box in a couple
of cities in Canada.

It was easier to get
from the U.S. to Canada

once he was charged

than it would have been
to fly overseas.

We had a plastic surgeon
and a nurse

who worked in the office
who looked at that ad and said,

"That's a patient of ours
out in British Columbia."

- Wow.
- So we flew out.

We went through a whole
patient roster and looked.

- You know, we're trying
to match pictures we have

with pictures
in the files there.

It wasn't pretty, a lot of it,
it felt like.

It was a lot of work.
- Right.

- It took a long time.

- Unfortunately,
we never were able

to identify Catherine Greig
as being a patient out there.

- But she had been there?
Like, she had...

No?
both: No.

- We really thought
that we were gonna come home

with Whitey Bulger
on that trip.

That was a crappy
plane ride home, you know,

because that was
a really good tip.

Stood out from the rest.

- So you guys are disappointed.

You come back from Canada, and
there's no more information.

What do you do next?

- We wanted a reward on her.
We had a reward on Bulger.

- Mm-hmm.
- There's very few

female fugitives
that you see a reward for.

And we were able
to get a $100,000 reward

for information leading to
the arrest of Catherine Greig

as well as the $2 million
that was out there on Bulger.

And the other thing we did,

one of the media people
in Boston knew from, you know,

outside work previously about
a public service announcement.

The FBI,
they'd never done it before,

so we were able
to get the funding.

We got some scripts written
up...two separate scripts...

emphasizing, you know,
Catherine

and her possibly being
in danger, just 30 seconds.

- This is an announcement
by the FBI.

Have you seen this woman?

The FBI is offering $100,000

for tips leading to
Catherine Greig's whereabouts.

- We emphasized
the age difference

between her and Bulger.

- 60-year-old Greig
is the girlfriend

of 81-year-old Bulger.

- We emphasized we're focusing
on her now, not him.

She's on the run with this guy

that's been charged
with 19 murders.

They really wanted to appeal
to, like, a female audience,

figuring that would be
a female she would talk to

while on the run who would
recognize the photo and call.

- Call the tip line
at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

- The FBI's doing
a public service announcement.

So that's new stuff.

That made the press
all over the world.

- The FBI is trying
something new

to track down one
of its most wanted suspects.

Starting today,
it will begin airing

a public service announcement
aimed at women.

- Detailing the habits
of Bulger's companion,

Catherine Greig.

The FBI produced the ad

and spent $50,000
to buy airtime in 14 cities.

- The FBI's looking for tips
to lead them to Grieg

who will potentially
then lead them to Bulger.

- It was worth every penny
because the media passed it

around and we didn't have to
pay for it all over the world.

- So then from there,
you start getting tips?

- We're getting tips.

The one we get the next day,

I mean, it's the one.

- So what was the big tip
that came in?

- Grieg's and Whitey's
photograph was recognized

as a couple

that had been living
in Santa Monica, California,

for years.

Right down from the shopping
center in Santa Monica.

Not far from the beach.
Nice area.

Gave the exact apartment: the
Princess Eugenia Apartments.

And they're living there now.

Part of the publicity was

that they liked cats,
and dogs, and pets,

and we received information

that a female
helped out the strays.

Lot of little things
matched up.

And they're using the name
Charles Gasko and his wife.

So we take that name,

and then you do all these
database checks on that name.

The true Charles Gasko
has been dead for years.

- So he stole
somebody's identity.

Used it. Smart.
- Right, so you got a guy

who's living in Santa Monica
using an ID of a dead guy.

And that's a pretty good clue

when you're looking
for a guy like this.

- So, of course,
then what do you do?

You call LA Division?

"Hey, can you check this out?"

- We had a bunch of fugitive
violent crime task forces

during that period.

The guy we knew in LA
is Scott Garriola.

We call Garriola.

He got his task force,
LAPD guys,

and they set up on the place
and watched it.

One of his officers
on the task force

saw the female
come out of the porch

and made
an independent identification

that's Catherine Grieg.

And now we're cooking with gas.

Garriola, he developed a ruse

with some cooperator out there
to talk to Whitey,

have him come down
in the basement

where he had a storage locker
down there.

Tell him
the thing's been broken into.

And Scott
and two or three of his guys

were in the basement
down there waiting.

And sure enough,
Bulger went down,

and Scott yells,
"FBI! On your knees!"

Bulger says, "I'm not getting
down on my f*cking knees."

And Scott doesn't know it's
him 100% yet, I don't think,

but when he makes
that statement,

Scott, he said, "Oh, yeah, this
has gotta be Whitey Bulger."

And finally,
Bulger gave it up.

Garriola asked him, he said,

"Aren't you relieved after
all these years on the run?"

And Bulger's response was,
"What, are you f*cking crazy?

Who wants to be in jail?
Who wants to be in prison?"

But you know it's k*lling him.

It's k*lling him
because he got caught.

They went upstairs
and got Catherine.

And they had all kinds of

sort of strange stuff
in his apartment.

- What did they find?

- There's r*fles, pistols,

you know, mace,
different kind of things.

Most of the pistols
are loaded.

Fake ID.

He said, "You're gonna
find a hand grenade

in one of these things."

He had big water bottles
with socks, like, white socks,

stretched out in the top
of these water bottles.

- For what? That's odd.
- Yeah.

Well, we asked them that.

And the answer is,
"I like white socks,

"but they're too tight
on my calves

so I stretch them out."

We were scratching our heads.

He had tons of stuff in the
apartment, some strange stuff.

Bulger told Scott where the
money was...800 grand, cash.

Behind this mirror,
behind this picture,

all drywalled in.

Cut it out, and there's
just stacks and stacks

and stacks of cash there.

He had drug money

from the '70s and '80s.
- Of course.

- But he told Catherine,
"This is it."

And it was it.

It was the end for him anyway.

- One of the most infamous
mobsters of the 20th century

was finally brought
to justice today.

Whitey Bulger is charged
with murdering 19 people

as head of Boston's Irish mob.

- You brought in
a team of FBI agents.

We worked the crap out
of the case.

And we came up
with some innovative ways

to try and find this guy,
and it worked.

- You know,
I talked to him at length,

and he told me, "My biggest
fear when I was on the run

"was that
I didn't wanna die in bed.

"If I got sick, cancer,
or something like that,

"I was gonna go down
to Arizona,

"climb down in one
of those mine shafts,

"and just die in the bottom,
way back, somewhere else,

hoping you guys never find me
looking for me."

- Really?
It'd be like another Hoffa.

Looking for the body.
- Yeah, he would've loved that.

- There were times
working the case

where, yeah, we'd say,

"Man, are they just happy
indicting this guy in Boston?"

Like, don't they want
to frickin' catch him?

Like, the FBI is getting
the sh*t kicked out of them

constantly
in the media in Boston.

Constantly.
- Yeah.

- And here we come to town,
and we're like,

wow, the bureau's the only one

really trying to do something
to find this guy.

And that's exactly
what happened.

The stuff the FBI did led to
the location of this fugitive,

and he came back
on the FBI jet to Boston.

[dramatic music]

♪