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Friday 8 December 2023 Dublin: 9°C
AP/Press Association Images James 'Whitey' Bulger after his arrest
whitey bulger

Gangster 'Whitey' Bulger brought down... by former Miss Iceland

Ex-beauty queen Anna Bjornsdottir has pocketed a $2million reward for tipping off the FBI – after getting to know the mobster thanks to a stray cat.

IRISH-AMERICAN GANGSTER James ‘Whitey’ Bulger was nabbed by the FBI earlier this year thanks to a tip-off from Miss Iceland 1974, it has emerged.

A Boston Globe investigation has revealed that ex-actress and beauty queen Anna Bjornsdottir called the cops on Bulger and his girlfriend after bonding with the pair over a stray cat. Bjornsdottir was a neighbour of Bulger and Catherine Greig when they lived as Carol and Charlie Gasko in Santa Monica, California.

She noticed that they were protective of a stray cat called Tiger, feeding him and bringing him to the vet when he was ill, the Globe reports.

Bjornsdottir has since moved back to Iceland, from where she made the call that brought police down on the fugitive mobster in June. Fox News reports that the FBI paid out a $2.1 million reward to an unnamed informant – presumably Bjornsdottir – after the arrest.

Boston Globe reporter Maria Cramer told CBS News that Bulger was living “a really ordinary life” while on the run charged with 19 murders. “By all accounts, he had become a retiree,” she said. “At the end, what we saw was not some glamorous gangster and his vain moll – it was just an old couple.”

For more information, read the Boston Globe’s investigation here>

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