Winter Hill Gang
The Winter Hill Gang is one of mainly Irish Americans and partly Italo Americans dominated bonds in the organized crime of Greater Boston ( Massachusetts ).
The transition was named in the 1970s by journalists of the Boston Herald , as the first activities of the gang its origins from the district of Winter Hill in Somerville north come from Boston. The gang had its greatest influence from 1965 to 1979. Its most notorious leader, James "Whitey" Bulger , was listed as 458 in chronological order from 1999 to 2011 on the FBI's list of ten most wanted fugitives and was exposed to $ 2 million for his capture.
history
Origins
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The gang's first dominant boss was Irish-American gangster James "Buddy" McLean . He organized activities in areas such as illegal gambling and truck hijackings.
Irish gang war
During 1961 and 1967 war raged between the Charlestown mob from Boston , led by Bernard McLaughlin, and the Winter Hill Gang from Somerville , led by James McLean. The two gangs coexisted relatively peacefully for many years, until an incident on Labor Day weekend in 1961. It is widely believed that the war began when George McLaughlin tried to heal the girlfriend of Winter Hill associate Alexander "Alex Rocco" at a party. Petricone, Jr. , and was subsequently beaten by two other Winter Hill members. Bernard McLaughlin confronted McLean and when McLean refused to extradite the said two members, McLaughlin swore revenge and a short time later they tried to murder McLean with a car bomb. McLaughlin was murdered in the Charlestown borough of Boston in October 1961 . Soon after, Russ Nicholson was murdered by Bernard's brothers Edward and George, as he was suspected to have been involved in the murder of their brother.
After surviving many murder attempts, Edward was shot on October 20, 1965 on the way to the murder trial of his brother George, in the West Roxbury district of Boston . A few days later, on October 31, 1965, McLean was shot dead by one of the last survivors of the McLaughlin Gang, Steve Hughes. A year later, in 1966, the last two members of the McLaughlin Gang, brothers Connie and Steve Hughes, were murdered; allegedly by Frank Salemme who was a partner in the Patriarca family from Boston.
George McLaughlin, the one who started the war, was the only one who survived by being sent to prison.
Change of power
McLean's right-hand man Howie Winter took over after his assassination. The Winter Hill Gang became well versed in murdering rival gangsters in order to take over their businesses. But once they got control, initially they had no idea how the respective business was going to run. They learned the lesson in 1973 after the wiping out of Joseph "Indian Joe" Notarangeli's crew and taking over his gambling business. Yet what was a fabulously profitable illegal gambling company let the gang "go down the drain". Over the years, the gang lost interest in gambling businesses and eventually offered protection for bookmakers, drug dealers and truck hijackers.
In 1975 Howie Winter and Winter Hill member John Martorano went broke. Eventually they had to submit to high-ranking Mafiaoso Gennaro Angiulo of the Patriarca family in order to borrow money. During the 1960s through the 1980s, the Boston Underworld was controlled by him and his gang. The FBI had been after him since the early 1960s. With the help of the FBI's own Winter Hill informants James "Whitey" Bulger and his partner Stephen Flemmi , who had been an FBI informant since 1965, they were able to gain a lot of incriminating information about Angiulo's operations from 1975 onwards.
In February 1979 Howie Winter and other members of the Winter Hill Gang were arrested and charged with participating in illegal horse racing. Martorano could be warned and he fled to Florida , where he spent the next 16 years on the run. James "Whitey" Bulger became the new head of the Winter Hill Gang.
Bulger's rise and flight
Bulger and Flemmi used their informant status to eliminate competition. The information they provided to the FBI in the years that followed was responsible for the detention of several of its own employees, whom Bulger viewed as threats. However, the main focus of the FBI was on Gennaro Angiulo, who controlled Boston's "North End" with his men . The FBI successfully installed eavesdropping devices in a bar in Angiulo through Winter Hill informants. He was arrested on September 19, 1983 and sentenced three years later. Bulger and Flemmi filled the vacuum that followed to take control of organized crime in the Boston area.
During the 1980s, Bulger, Flemmi, and Bulger's longtime friend Kevin Weeks' business throughout eastern Massachusetts included extortion, usury, bookmaking, truck hijacking, and arms dealing, among other things. Federal agencies have repeatedly been disrupted in their attempts to build cases against Bulger and his inner circle by corruption within the Boston Police Department, Massachusetts State Police, and the FBI.
He used trawlers to ship weapons for the IRA , for example under Joe Cahill , across the Atlantic. Bulger later got into the drug business and let several drug dealers in and around Boston, such as John "Red" Shea , work for them.
In 1995, Bulger and Flemmi were charged along with the Mafiosi Frank Salemme and Bobby DeLuca. After he was warned by an FBI agent who was later arrested that he was being investigated, Bulger and his girlfriend left in December 1994. In addition to using various aliases, he is said to have traveled through the United States, Canada , Mexico and Europe using various disguises . He has been sighted in London and Taormina , among others . After 16 years on the run Bulger was on 22 June 2011 at the age of 81 in Santa Monica ( California arrested) with his girlfriend Catherine Greig. He was sentenced to double life imprisonment plus five years for racketeering and 11 murders on November 14, 2013 .
1990s until today
After Bulger's escape from the law, his protégé Kevin Weeks took the lead, who is said to have had several secret meetings with Bulger in New York City and Chicago . After The Boston Globe revealed that Bulger and Flemmi were informants, Weeks met with retired FBI agent John Connolly , who showed him a photocopy of Bulger's FBI informant file. To justify Bulger and Flemmi's status as informants, Connolly said, "The Mafia was going against Jimmy and Stevie, so Jimmy and Stevie were going against them."
On November 17, 1999, Weeks and other Winter Hill supporters were arrested in South Boston . A few weeks later, Weeks decided to cooperate with the authorities. He led authorities to six different bodies buried by the Winter Hill Gang and confirmed that he would testify against Stephen Flemmi and Whitey Bulger. He also testified against Special Agent Connolly. In return, he received a prison sentence of only 5 years plus the time he had already spent in detention.
Since then, George "Georgie Boy" Hogan has been the new mastermind of the Winter Hill Gang.
Known members and associates
| Surname | Lifetime | Cause of death | position | annotation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| James "Buddy" McLean | 1930-1965 | shot on October 31, 1965 | Boss from 1955–1965 | |
| Howard "Howie" Winter | 1929 – today | Boss from 1965–1978 | Detained 1979–1987 and 1993–2002 | |
| James "Whitey" Bulger | 1929-2018 | murdered in custody | Boss from 1978–1995 | Volatile 1994–2011 / arrested 2013–2018 |
| Kevin Weeks | 1956 – today | Boss from 1995-2000 | Imprisoned and renegade since 1999–2006 | |
| George "Georgie Boy" Hogan | ????-today | Boss from 2000 – today | ||
| Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi | 1934 – today | Lieutenant from 1978-1995 | detained since 1994 | |
| Vincent "Jimmy the Bear" Flemmi | 1935-1979 | Heroin overdose | associated | imprisoned from the 1970s |
| Joseph "Joe Mac" McDonald | 1917-1997 | stroke | soldier | Accused in 1979 and fled |
| John "Richard Aucoin" Martorano | 1940 – today | killer | Volatile 1979–1995 / imprisoned 1995–2007 | |
| James "Jimmy" Martorano | 1941 – today | soldier | Imprisoned in 1976 / Patriarca member since 1995 | |
| John "Red" Shea | 1965 – today | Lieutenant 1985-1994 | Imprisoned 1990–2002 and renegade | |
| Patrick "Pat" Nah | 1942 – today | associated | Imprisoned 1987–1989 and 1990–2000 | |
| James P. "Jimmy" Flynn | 1934 – today | soldier | Suspect in the Halloran murder, acquitted in 1986 | |
| Thomas "Tommy" King | ???? - 1975 | murdered | killer | Disappeared in November 1975, recovered dead in 2000 |
| Brian "Balloonhead" Halloran | ???? - 1982 | shot on May 11, 1982 | associated | Perpetrator: Whitey Bulger |
Films and documentaries
- 2015: Black Mass - The Godfather of Boston : Film is about u. a. of the prosecution of the Angiulo brothers and the FBI information on the Patriarca family by gangster James J. Bulger .
- 2006: Departed : Frank Costello, portrayed by Jack Nicholson, is based on the personality of James "Whitey" Bulger . The longstanding conflicts with the Patriarca family are also hinted at.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chronological Listing of The FBI's “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” March 14, 1950 - March 1, 2010
- ↑ Somerville News Blog - The gang's not here and Winter Hill has changed
- ↑ Patch.com - What Winter Hill Thinks of Whitey
- ^ Vice - My Cousin Joe Was a Hit Man for the Boston Mob
- ↑ Boston.com - Howie Winter, former head of Winter Hill Gang, pleads not guilty to extortion charges ( Memento of March 15, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ CBS News - FBI helped Bulger evade detection, ex-cop says
- ^ Crime Museum - Howie Winter
- ↑ WBUR - One-time Boston mob boss Gennaro Angiulo Dead At 90
- ^ PR Newswire - Former Massachusetts State Police Officer Sentenced for Conspiring to Obstruct Justice In Bulger Fugitive Investigation
- ↑ FAZ - No death in a hail of bullets
- ↑ Spiegel Online - 16 years underground: FBI catches Boston godfather James Bulger.
- ^ Time Online - The Late End of James Bulger.
- ^ Mirror - James "Whitey Bulger" henchman reveals how he used to hide the mobster's victims bodies
- ↑ Top public enemies - Top 70 famous Irish-American gangsters