winter charging

The Winter Hill Gang was a loose confederation of American organized crime figures in the Boston, Massachusetts area. It was generally considered an Irish mob organization, with most gang members and the leadership consisting predominantly of Irish-Americans, although some notable members, such as Stephen Flemmi and Johnny Martorano, were of Italian-American descent. The organization itself derives its name from the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, north of Boston. The Winter Hill Gang was given its name in the 1970s by journalists at the Boston Herald.
The Winter Hill Gang was involved with most typical organized crime-related activities, including drug trafficking, gambling, and loan sharking, as well as fixing horse races throughout the northeastern United States, and shipping weapons to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Twenty-one members and associates were indicted by federal prosecutors in 1979.
The Winter Hill Gang was the second most powerful criminal organization in New England, behind only the Patriarca crime family of Providence, Rhode Island. Amongst its members several have been notorious Boston gangsters, such as James "Buddy" McLean, James "Whitey" Bulger, Howie Winter, Joseph "Joe Mac" McDonald, Patrick Nee, Kevin Weeks and Stephen Flemmi. They were most influential from 1965, under the rule of McLean and Winter, to the 1979 takeover led by Bulger.

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