Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime

Record

Case file

1974/1975

FBI Records: The Vault

FBI Vault, James (Whitey) Bulger, Part 02: Boston Division reports, 1974 to 1975

The second part of the FBI's Bulger file: Boston field office reports, transmittals of recorded telephone calls and arrest papers, most captioned with the federal extortionate-credit and racketeering statutes. Most names are redacted, and only the Vault OCR has been read.

Date
1974/1975
Kind
case-file
Source
FBI Records: The Vault
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
A record of the Federal Bureau of Investigation released under FOIA through the Vault. A work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The Vault refused requests for this part's page images on 12 October 2026, so no copy is stored and the page shows a document plate.

Part 02 of the FBI Vault file “James (Whitey) Bulger,” 213 scanned pages. This page is built from the Vault’s OCR text. The page images could not be retrieved when this archive tried to check them, so every reading below is “as far as the OCR can be read” and may be wrong in detail.

The part opens with FOIPA deleted-page sheets. These are followed by transmittals of transcripts of recorded telephone calls, Boston field office reports, interview reports, telephone subscriber and licence records, arrest records, and a sequence of papers from September onward on the arrest and arraignment of Boston-area subjects indicted for extortionate credit transactions and conspiracy. Dates legible in the OCR run from December 1974 to December 1975. The report captions name the statutes, in the OCR’s spelling, as “EXTORTIONATE CREDIT TRANSACTIONS” and “RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS.” Most names of subjects and informants are withheld under FOIA exemptions (b6, b7C, b7D).

Scan 119 is the first page of a Boston report dated July 7, 1975, prepared for a Strike Force attorney, with that statute caption. Its synopsis continues on scan 120. There, as far as the OCR can be read, a departmental attorney anticipates returning indictments “in immediate future,” and a line reads “HOWARD T. WINTER” beside a redacted name, followed by “are to be named unindicted.” The OCR breaks the sentence, and this archive has not been able to confirm it on the image. It should not be quoted as the Bureau’s words until it has been.

The OCR does not make clear what part, if any, James Bulger plays in the investigation this part documents. The file is under his name in the Vault, but the pages read do not say why. Nothing on this page states that Bulger or Winter was charged with anything in 1975.

itemJames "Whitey" Bulger (FBI)FBI image of James "Whitey" Bulger from the FBI's Boston field-office history, captioned with his arrest on June 22, 2011 in Santa Monica, California. A copy is stored here.itemAlcatraz warden's notebook page for James J. Bulger, Jr., No. 1428Bureau of Prisons notebook page with the identification photograph of James J. Bulger, Jr., received at Alcatraz from Atlanta on 13 November 1959 under a 20-year sentence for robbery of an FDIC bank. A copy is stored here.itemJames Bulger's Alcatraz inmate case file, No. 1428 (National Archives catalog entry)Catalog entry for the Alcatraz case file of register no. 1428, with 580 digitized pages. The description gives receipt from Atlanta on 13 November 1959 and transfer to Leavenworth on 25 July 1962.itemUnited States v. Howard T. Winter et al., criminal case file 79-CR-00042-MA (D. Mass.)National Archives description of the District of Massachusetts case file in the horse-race fixing prosecution: a 52-count indictment against 21 defendants, with trial transcripts and papers on the First Circuit appeal.itemFBI Vault, James (Whitey) Bulger, Part 01: Boston reports, 1974 to 1978First part of the FBI's released Bulger file: Boston airtels and reports of 1974 and 1975 on an extortionate-credit inquiry naming Bulger among suspected loansharks, and 1976 to 1978 reports on a race-fixing investigation. Read in part from the OCR.itemFBI Vault, James (Whitey) Bulger, Part 05: Boston memorandum of June 23, 1995 on the January 1995 indictmentPart 05 of the FBI's Bulger file is mostly withheld. Its readable pages include a June 23, 1995 Boston communication summarizing the indictment's allegation that the "Winter Hill Gang" and the "PATRIARCA LCN Family" conspired to control organized crime in Boston.itemUnited States v. Winter, 663 F.2d 1120 (1st Cir. 1981)First Circuit opinion of October 30, 1981 on a 42-count RICO prosecution of a horse-race-fixing enterprise that bribed jockeys at East Coast tracks from 1973 to 1975. Four convictions were affirmed and two reversed.itemUnited States v. Martorano, 663 F.2d 1113 (1st Cir. 1981): new-trial motions in the race-fixing caseFirst Circuit opinion of October 30, 1981 affirming the denial of new-trial motions by Howard T. Winter, James Martorano and four codefendants, based on FBI reports and grand jury testimony of the Government's chief witness, Anthony Ciulla, that had not been disclosed before trial.