Betrayal: Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down Read Online Free PDF

handlers a great deal of information about gambling and scams involving bribery and race fixes. For instance, he explained to Opie that horse talk for fixing a race is called a “boatrace.” The jockeys or their associates get together once in a while to make some money for themselves by pooling their dough and fixing the race in full awareness of which jockey will win. The wiseguys have their own informants who relay the information so that they, too, can turn a profit on a deal. Rumor had it that Richie was the best boatrace guy in the business, information dutifully recorded in his 137 file.
    Richie wasn’t worried because he was told that he’d never have to testify. Not once did it dawn on him that his handlers might be lying to him about this, about Sal, about everything. Richie had been all about being liked for so long that he’d bought into his own act. And he’d formed such a tight bond with the agents, especially Opie, that it was inconceivable to him that they were anything but on the up and up. Richie started looking at his handlers the same way he looked at the crowds he entertained at the Ebb Tide. He even came clean about how he got to be where he was, how strong-armed heists had scared him and turned him to the track and gambling, the whole ambiance of which was a better fit for his makeup.
    Their bond cemented, Opie would come to Richie with a “shopping list” from time to time, gleaning from him more about past events, new events, and “what are you going to give us now” events. And Richie, ever guilty of wanting to please, was always on the lookout for anything that might help his new FBI pals. He found himself feeling respectable, liking the sense of being on the side of the good guys for a change.
    In 1976, on a whim, Opie asked Richie about two murderous muffs from Irish Southie who were on the lam and had made it onto the FBI’s Most Wanted list of top ten fugitives. Castucci knew immediately who he was talking about because they were associates of his: Joe McDonald and James Sims, the very thugs Whitey Bulger asked Richie to stash for him in New York.
    Being on the Most Wanted list meant that every agent throughout the United States wanted to capture these guys. But Richie didn’t make his handlers even work hard, stunning the agents when he simply told them where McDonald and Sims could be found. He insisted that Bulger had come to him “out of the blue” to get his assistance in hiding the two killers. Richie told Whitey that a pal of his, formerly in the can at the ACI in Walpole, was a “caretaker” in New York who ran a kind of boardinghouse for on-the-lam criminals. Whitey gave Richie the go-ahead to set up the hideaway for McDonald and Sims, the location of which he nonchalantly furnished to Opie.
    McDonald and Sims represented a huge score, a double bubble—two for the price of one. Back at the FBI office, Opie was ecstatic. All of his research and background on Richie was paying off. Many of the agents had scoffed at Richie’s selection as a target for informant development, especially a TE, but Opie’s decision had now been vindicated.
    “A happy informant is a productive informant and everyone is then happy!” Opie announced to the agents in his squad bay.
    Ironically, Richie even then didn’t push too hard about when the FBI was going to move on Sal Caruana. And, in point of fact, no one from the FBI had any intention to.
    “Cheers!” the agents, including John Connolly and John Morris, bellowed in return.
    That meant drinks were on Opie and he was more than happy to foot the bill. Thanks to his latest informant, after all, Opie was going to be instrumental in the nabbing of two Top Tens for the Bureau, a potential career-changing accomplishment.
    Opie called the New York office of the FBI explaining that he had the inside skinny that would net the fugitives on their turf. The New York agents were thrilled when informed that the Top Tens were holed up in the city.