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Honest Detectives Played Key Role In Bringing Bulger To Justice

BOSTON (CBS) -- We all know now how some corrupt FBI agents protected, and enabled, Whitey Bulger. But there were many good, honest cops trying to build a case against the killer.

"He had tentacles in every facet of law enforcement around here, " Bob Long, a retired Massachusetts State Police detective, said after Bulger was convicted Monday in his racketeering trial.

It was Long and another detective who spent weeks in a vermin-infested room near the old Lancaster Street garage, taking surveillance pictures of Bulger meeting with other underworld figures.

"He was one of the sickest criminals in the history of Boston," Long said, "and he did it with the permission of the FBI."

And before he became the head of the Massachusetts State Police, Tom Foley was also a detective on the trail of Bulger.

Foley, too, found his every effort to bust Bulger and his Winter Hill Gang thwarted by crooked law enforcement agents. "We had to peel away all the layers of protection he had," Foley said, "he was the devil."

In the end, it was Long's and Foley's work that was instrumental in convicting Bulger.

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