cranford central, 484 cranford street new location

B World
THE PRESS, CHRISTCHURCH
Saturday,
Saturday &June
Sunday,
25, June
201125-26, 2011
B1
UNITED STATES
PHILIPPINES/US
Mobster’s days on run end
Dreams
may be
over for
writer
Rhys Blakely Los Angeles
GOOD
RIDDANCE
‘One of the most
unpleasant
TV shows ever.’
❯❯ WORLD
B7
A BIT
RICH
Taxing times for
Bono and U2 amid
protest threat.
❯❯ WORLD
B2
CHAMBER
OF SECRETS
J K Rowling reveals
nearly all
on new website.
❯❯ WORLD
B4
REGULARS
❯❯ On this day
❯❯ Quote unquote
B2
B7
He was one of America’s most
feared crime lords, a mob boss
who had been on the FBI’s
‘‘Ten Most Wanted’’ list since
1999 and a man whose
infiltration of the country’s
top crime-fighting agency
would inspire a Hollywood
blockbuster.
In the end, however, James
‘‘Whitey’’ Bulger, 81, was not
betrayed by a crony or rival.
Even the US$2 million
(NZ$2.45m) bounty offered for
his capture – the biggest on
record for a domestic American fugitive – may not have
been a factor. In the end, it
seems, he was finally undone
by his girlfriend’s penchant
for teeth-whitening treatments and facials.
Bulger was arrested in
Santa Monica on Thursday,
after an FBI media campaign
targeting female chat-show
viewers in their 60s. The aim
had been to locate Catherine
Greig, a 60-year-old former
dental hygienist who was
Bulger’s long-term girlfriend.
The ads described her as
an animal lover with ‘‘well
kept’’ teeth and a fondness for
plastic surgery and beauty
salons. The hope was that
another beauty parlour customer would recognise her.
The plan seems to have
worked.
A
tip-off
led
detectives to an apartment in
Santa Monica and ended the
freedom of a man whose life
story directly inspired the
writers who created the
gangster boss played by Jack
Nicholson in the Oscarwinning film The Departed.
In 2000 the FBI’s Boston
branch created a unit whose
sole objective was finding
Bulger. Until this week, the
last confirmed sighting was in
London in the 1990s, by a
businessman who saw him
working out in the gym of the
Meridien Hotel in Piccadilly
Circus. A safe-deposit box was
later uncovered in London
containing US$50,000 and the
key to another deposit box in
Dublin, where Bulger had
connections with the republican movement.
For decades, he had salted
away cash and fake passports
across Europe and America,
perhaps anticipating that he
would spend his twilight
years on the run. The
Pakistani ambassador to the
US recently referred to the
Boston
gangster
while
defending his country’s failure to find another fugitive.
‘‘If Whitey Bulger can live
undetected by American
police for so long, why can’t
Osama bin Laden live
undetected by Pakistani
authorities?’’ he asked.
In May Time magazine
published a long profile on
Triumphant: Assistant US Attorney Robert Dugdale speaks outside the building where James ‘‘Whitey’’ Bulger and his girlfriend were arraigned in Los Angeles yesterday.
‘
Photos: REUTERS
If Whitey Bulger
can live
undetected by
American police
for so long, why
can’t Osama bin
Laden live
undetected by
Pakistani
authorities?
Husain Haqqani
Pakistani ambassador to
the US
Different paths: ‘‘Whitey’’ Bulger, left, became a feared crime boss, while
his brother William, right, was a Massachusetts senator.
him. ‘‘In south Boston, Bulger
still casts a long shadow.
Locals don’t talk to strangers
about him, so at home his
infamy is his best protection
against ever being caught,’’ it
said.
Over the years, those
hunting him had built up a
detailed portrait. He was an
avid reader, a history buff
with a special interest in
Adolf Hitler. He had a
bullying manner that he
struggled to tame even in
casual conversation, and an
explosive temper. He was
known to dye his hair, sport a
moustache and to alternate
between different styles of
glasses. He loved dogs, never
used credit cards and spoke in
a thick Boston accent that he
probably could not disguise if
he tried.
Completing a life story that
reads like a Mario Puzo novel
was the younger brother who
chose a different path. William Bulger was one of the
most powerful politicians in
Massachusetts, leading the
state senate for 17 years and
later serving as president of
the University of Massachusetts for seven years. In
2003 he resigned from his
university post under pressure from the governor, Mitt
Romney.
His resignation came two
months after he testified
about his brother before a
congressional committee. William Bulger said he spoke to
his brother shortly after he
went on the run, but did not
alert the authorities. The Times
❯❯ Diabolical killer B6
Chase over: A poster for FBI most wanted fugitive James ‘‘Whitey’’ Bulger
on a wall at FBI headquarters in Washington.
The mother of a Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist who
is an illegal immigrant in the
US said that she tried to
persuade him not to risk
being deported by revealing
his status.
Emelie Salinas sent Jose
Antonio Vargas from the
Philippines to live with his
grandparents in California
when he was 12 and has not
seen him in person since.
Yesterday in her home
near Manila, she said that she
worried about the consequences of his revelations to
the media and tried to stop
him, thinking all his hard
work and achievements
might be wasted. ‘‘We could
not understand . . . he was
already there, he already
achieved his dream, what else
did he want?’’ she said.
In the end, she said, she
supported him because it was
his choice.
Vargas, 30, who shared a
Pulitzer Prize for coverage of
the Virginia Tech massacre
as a reporter for The Washington Post, said he did not know
about his immigration status
until four years after he
arrived in the US, when he
applied for a driver’s permit
and handed a Department of
Motor Vehicles clerk his
green card. ‘‘This is fake,’’ the
clerk told Vargas. ‘‘Don’t
come back here again.’’
Vargas confronted his
grandfather, who admitted he
bought the green card and
other fake documents.
Salinas, 53, said that her
son was ready for possible
deportation and had obtained
a Philippine passport. ‘‘We
are excited to see him,’’
Salinas said. ‘‘I just hope he
can come home with his
documents in order.’’
When she sent him to the
US, Salinas said she promised
she would follow him and had
applied several times for a US
visa but was denied.
Salinas, who separated
from Vargas’ father when the
boy was three, said she could
not afford to send her son to
school in the Philippines. She
said she sent him to his
grandparents in the US
because she wanted a good
future for him.
‘‘In the beginning, there
were times I would think I
wish I did not send him
there,’’ she said. ‘‘But I saw
what he was doing . . . I saw
that he was achieving his
dreams, getting the things
which he could not get here.’’
AP
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