US crime boss link with IRA gun run
Notorious Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger was involved in a shipment of arms for the IRA, it has been claimed.
The allegation concerns a trawler intercepted by the Irish navy in 1984, resulting in the seizure of seven tonnes of arms.
Bulger, one of the FBI’S most wanted criminals, was on the run for 16 years before he was caught in 2011.
He was convicted of 11 murders in 2013 and found dead in a US federal prison last year.
The latest episode of the new BBC Northern Ireland series Spotlight On The Troubles: A Secret History is set to link Bulger to the IRA gun running operation.
Those interviewed include New York-born former US marine John Crawley, who went on to join the IRA.
He said he was ordered to set up a new IRA arms network in the US.
“I was given a $5 note that’s cut in an erratic way, and I was to meet somebody in Boston who had the other half of this note,” he tells the programme.
The torn $5 bill led to Patrick Nee, described as an associate of Bulger and an IRA arms supplier.
In autumn 1984, the arsenal of weapons was delivered to Gloucester, north-east of Boston, for shipment to Ireland on board a fishing boat.
The programme will allege that Bulger used a radio scanner to check police calls as the boat was loaded. However, the weapons did not reach Ireland after an informer tipped off Irish police.
The third episode of Spotlight On The Troubles: A Secret History will be shown on BBC1 Northern Ireland and across the UK on BBC4 on Tuesday at 9pm.