Staff Writer

 It took FBI agents 16 years to track down a fugitive from Massachusetts. The search was reduced to 36 hours after a locally made video was aired in nationwide markets.

Federal authorities said James “Whitey” Bulger, 81, was arrested June 22 in Santa Monica, Calif., after a tip led them to his longtime companion, Catherine Greig.

Greig had been the focus of a public service video made by South Portland-based Northeast Media Contacts and Portland-based Black Fly Media, said Angie Helton of Northeast Media Contacts.

“It was a huge collaboration,” Helton said about the 30-second video about Greig’s personal habits that included pictures showing how she might appear after numerous plastic surgeries. Photos and video clips of Bulger were also a part of the ad, aired throughout the country.

FBI agents had been looking for Bulger since his indictment in 1995 in connection with 19 murders and on extortion, drug distribution and money laundering charges. Documents for U.S. District Court in Boston show Bulger was due to appear Wednesday, after the Courier deadline.

Authorities said Bulger’s alleged activities with the Winter Hill Gang in Boston in the 1970s made him one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives. Greig was charged with harboring a fugitive in 1997 and faces a five-year sentence if found guilty.

The video, which is on view at www.nemediaassociates.com, is brief, but took more than two days to assemble and edit, Helton said.

Saco resident Charlie Berg, a co-owner of Black Fly Media, said he, Helton and four FBI agents sifted through photos of Greig and Bulger, to decide which pictures to use. He said the sequence of the video was time consuming.

“It took a lot more time than the usual 30-second video in terms of post-production,” he said.

Helton said a friend who works for the FBI contacted her in April about the video. She was unaware what the public service announcement would be about even after the agency reviewed company information about Northeast Media Contacts and Black Fly Media.

Berg, who works for WCSH-6 in Portland, said it was intimidating at first when agents came to his home.

“Once they knocked on the door and came in, they were really great people. I was thinking of inviting them to a cookout,” he said.

Berg said agents were aware he works in the media and for his own company, but keeping mum about the project did counter his instincts.

“My normal reaction would be to run and tell the world,” he said.

Two videos were created for authorities to review in Washington, D.C., Helton said, and the final in-home meeting between her, Berg and the agents took more than 12 hours. She and Berg had perspective from creating advertisements and the agents were trying to select images that would make Bulger and Greig immediately recognizable.

Berg said his 2-year-old daughter interrupted one intensive editing session to announce she needed a diaper change.

Helton said she got the impression agents were unable to pinpoint where Bulger and Greig lived and targeted media markets where they were known to have some friends or family. Because Greig was known to visit beauty salons, the public service announcements were aired during the same time slots as daytime TV shows.

The fast results stunned them both, Helton and Berg said.

“I did not know to expect any results,” Berg said. “I thought this was just another route they were taking.”

It was a new route, Helton said, the FBI was airing its first public service announcement in search of a wanted fugitive.

“It feels really good,” Berg said, “but I can’t take too much credit.”