Fighting Terrorism with Democracy: How Norway's Prime Minister Plans to Heal His Country (Time.com)

Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian prime minister, is sitting in a garden chair on a sun-drenched terrace in a comfortable, but not exceedingly luxurious house. A gardener plies a hole in the black loam with his spade, and then plants a small bush of purple Aster in full bloom as a garden waterfall bubbles tranquilly nearby.

Since July 22, when twin attacks by a right-wing extremist destroyed Stoltenberg's office, left 76 dead, and rocked Norway, Stoltenberg's bucolic home-office has doubled as his command center. In one room, a group of aides are huddled over laptops. In another, two security guards seem to be trying hard to remain invisible and pass the time. The furniture is modern, but not extravagant. If Norway were a house, it might resemble the prime minister's residence: modern, functional, wealthy, but a home that would fit a dentist or a lawyer just as easily as the head of government. (See "Viewpoint: Defending the Open Future of Scandinavia.")

"This house says a lot about Norway," says Stoltenberg, a fit 50-something, sporting dark athletic sunglasses, in an interview with TIME. "One of our qualities is that the distance between political leaders and the people is smaller than in many other countries. Our challenge now is to try to remain a society where people can still be close to their political leaders."

That is Stoltenberg's mantra. Since Friday's bombing and shooting of dozens of teenage members of his left-leaning Labor Party by a right-wing extremist named Anders Behring Breivik, Stoltenberg has stayed on message at every occasion, whether in press conferences, or memorial services in Oslo, or facing a barrage of television cameras. He insists that Norway will not change.

Stoltenberg works the message, perhaps to calm Norwegians' fear of change and uncertainty, but also to keep the political realities clear. Asked what his first thought was when he learned that the attacker was a white Norwegian and not a dark-skinned Muslim, he said: "The first thing I thought is that this will create a completely different debate than if it was a foreigner." (See TIME's photos: "Explosion and Shooting Rock Norway.")

A white home-grown right-wing attacker turns the debate in Stoltenberg's favor. Instead of getting grilled by a resurgent right charging the government with being soft on terrorists, Breivik has put right-wing politics on the defensive in Norway. And Stoltenberg and his Labor Party are clearly benefiting.

As he worked his way up the Labor Party ranks, Stoltenberg - a former journalist - was a regular visitor at the annual retreats in Utoya, a place, he says, where young Norwegians and government ministers would hang out and discuss politics. He has at times been a controversial figure in Norway. In his youth, he hung out in radical left circles and was active in anti-American protests in Oslo that decried the Vietnam War. Stoltenberg has admitted to smoking marijuana in his teenage years. In the 1990s, he served in various government posts, including Ministry of Industry in the Third Brundtland Cabinet, a Labor-led minority government. Stoltenberg previously served as prime minister from 2000 to 2001; his current term began in 2005.

See "Norway Attacks: How a Once Moderate Region Became a Haven for the Far Right."

In a culture where private emotions are usually kept private, Stoltenberg has given impassioned speeches over the past few days, often appearing close to tears, and hugged Oslo citizens. His spirited defense of Norway's democratic tradition in the face of the July 22 attacks has also won him sympathy from voters. In a public opinion poll published this week by the Oslo-based newspaper VG, 94% of Norwegians polled said Stoltenberg was doing his job "well" or "extremely well," scoring even higher than Norway's King Harald, who scored 76% approval. "It's seldom that anyone gets results that are as unambiguous as this," Anders Todal Jenssen, political scientist at Norway's technical university NTNU in Trondheim, told Norway's NRK television. Norwegian media are also reporting this week that all of the country's main political parties have seen a surge in membership. (See TIME's photos: "Inside the World's Most Humane Prison.")

Stoltenberg's popularity will allow him to retain control of the debate as it moves back to the policy arena in the coming weeks. Already he is preparing to propose heightened security measures. But there will be nothing that even resembles a U.S.-style Patriot Act or some of the anti-terror measures seen in the United Kingdom, Germany or France. Stoltenberg has created an independent commission to investigate the official response to the attacks and draw conclusions for security policy. Does that mean that Norwegian police will routinely carry firearms or that metal detectors will be installed in all public buildings? Not likely.

"Even if we had armed police, it wouldn't have changed a thing at Utoya or downtown Oslo," he says. "No society will ever be able to have security measures which gives you 100% security against violence, and especially not against what we believe was a one-man, lone wolf act of violence."

Stoltenberg is not the only Nordic politician who has fought the corsets of security commonly imposed on holders of public office in Western Europe and the United States. But that freedom has often carried a heavy price. In 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme was gunned down in the streets of Stockholm as he walked home from the movies with his wife and no bodyguards. In 2003, Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed to death while shopping in a department store. (See More on Anders Breivik.)

Still, with the threat of Islamic terror growing and the arrests in Norway last year of three suspected terrorists, the country is imposing more security measures on its political leaders than ever before. The area where Breivik planted his car bomb, for example, was due to be sealed off to public traffic. "We were just in the process of closing this street because it goes between two government buildings," says Stoltenberg. "When I was prime minister in 2000 and 2001, there was hardly any security at all. I could just walk around Oslo without any body guards. Now I have security."

This security dilemma is hardly unique to Norway. Many countries today are faced with the question of how to hold firmly to democratic principles, civil liberties and freedom of movement even as those characteristics of societies make citizens more vulnerable to madmen. But Stoltenberg insists that you cannot compare Norway's experience with that of the United States in the aftermath of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. "We are a tiny country," he says. And yet, who could argue when he says that the "response to violence is more democracy, more openness, and greater political participation."

See "A Killer in Paradise: Inside the Norway Attacks."

See "How Serious Is the Terror Threat in Europe?"

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Norway Attacks: The Worrying Rise of the Lone-Wolf Terrorist (Time.com)

As investigators dig deeper into Anders Behring Breivik's twisted world, they are coming to the conclusion that the Norwegian right-wing extremist most likely acted alone. To many, it may come as a relief that Breivik's claims of being just one of several killer cells in some wider conspiracy for global domination turns out to be nothing but a web of deception spun by a brutal killer. But investigators and counterterrorism officials are not relieved. They fear that Breivik represents a new, potentially deadly paradigm shift in the world of extremist violence.

Over the past year or so, counterterrorism officials have been warning of a new trend, the so-called solo terrorist, a fighter trained by organizations like al-Qaeda but then sent off to act on his own, with little or no further correspondence with the group. This tactic reduces the amount of "chatter" - discussions on cell phones and over the Internet - that counterterrorism officials routinely pick up when a terrorist plot is in the offing. But Breivik is no solo terrorist. He has taken the concept a step further and appears to have no real connection to any organized group, say investigators. "Breivik represents a new paradigm," says Janne Kristiansen, head of Norway's domestic intelligence, the Police Security Service. "He's not a solo terrorist. He's a lone wolf who has been very intent on staying under the radar of the security services by leading a lawful life." (See TIME's photos: "Explosion and Shooting Rock Norway.")

Kristiansen, whose organization operates about 26 field offices charged with the task of keeping tabs on extremist activities in Norway, is not willing yet to categorically rule out a possible conspiracy that resulted in the July 22 Oslo bomb blast and mass shootings on Utoya island. But evidence so far indicates that Breivik acted alone and is using claims of a wider network as a tool to manipulate the media and keep himself in the headlines. "At this moment in time we do not have any indication that he had any help from accomplices or other cells," she says. "He is manipulating us all in the sense that he is keeping us all uncertain."

Right now, Norwegian investigators are combing through Breivik's 1,500-word manifesto for leads, putting his claims to the test of rigorous investigation to separate fact from fantasy and deception. The Norwegians have requested the assistance of Europol, and senior Norwegian intelligence officials were in Brussels on July 27 to discuss the investigation with European Union officials. Norway is not a member of the E.U., but European officials are particularly concerned about Breivik's claims to have links with cells outside Norway and are investigating any potential contacts he may have had with right-wing extremists in other European countries. Breivik claims to have had extensive contact with the English Defence League (EDL), for example. Kristiansen declined to comment in detail on the EDL but confirmed that the U.K.-based organization does have a connection to its Norwegian counterpart, the Norwegian Defense League (NDL). The NDL, however, has been a nonstarter in Norway, unable to garner any broad support. It is also unclear if Breivik had any contact with the NDL. (See "Fighting Terrorism with Democracy: How Norway's Prime Minister Plans to Heal His Country.")

Norwegian officials attribute the weakness of Norway's extreme-right scene to a dearth of charismatic leaders and Norway's tradition of antifascism. Norway was occupied by the Nazis during World War II, sparking a massive resistance movement. In fact, even Breivik uses the Norwegian resistance to Hitler as an argument for why he is not a neo-Nazi.

Norway has also been proactive in keeping neo-Nazi groups in check. In 2004 the country's domestic intelligence moved in on a right-wing extremist group called Vigrid, whose leader, Tore Tvedt, had built up a network of about 200 people and drew them in with a mix of neo-Nazi teachings, Odinism and ideas borrowed from Timothy McVeigh, the 1995 Okalahoma City bomber, according to an intelligence official who asked to remain anonymous. Fearing Vigrid could evolve into a terrorist network, the agency launched a campaign to disrupt the group by sending agents to visit everyone involved except its top leaders. One day in 2004, agents from all 26 field offices paid personal visits to each of Vigrid's members, many of whom were teenagers living with their parents. The investigators continued this tactic for several months, until about 60% of Vigrid quit the group voluntarily. (See TIME's photos: "Inside the World's Most Humane Prison.")

Despite Breivik's atrocities, Kristiansen still believes that Islamic terrorism poses a greater threat to security in Norway than the right wing. "The most dangerous groups are the Islamic extremists. That hasn't changed in the 10 years since 9/11," she says. And now adding to that threat is the rise of the lone wolf, the disconnected terrorist. "It is one of our biggest worries," she says. "You can't track down terrorists if they don't talk to each other on the Internet."

See More on Anders Breivik.

See "A Killer in Paradise: Inside the Norway Attacks."

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Report: 25,000 Security Breaches at U.S. Airports Since November 2001 (Time.com)

Newly released Department of Homeland Security documents reveal that there have been 25,000 security breaches at U.S. airports since November 2001.

More than 14,000 of those infractions were people entering "limited-access" areas, while another 6,000 incidents included travelers who made it through security checkpoints without being properly screened. Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah, a frequent critic of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), is overseeing a congressional hearing Wednesday on the security shortcomings. "I think it's a stunningly high number," Chaffetz told the Associated Press.

(MORE: Woman Calls TSA Hair Pat Down 'Racially Motivated')

But Transportation Security Administration spokesman Nicholas Kimball told USA Today that the breaches represent a miniscule fraction (just 1%) of the 5.5 billion air travelers who have used U.S. airports in the past 10 years. He also added that the term "breach" can mean a number of things and that "many of of these instances were thwarted or discovered in the act."

The TSA has been under fire in recent months for several high-profile breaches. The most recent incident occurred when a cleaning employee discovered a stun gun on a JetBlue plane that had landed in Newark, having flown from Boston. In early July, a Nigerian national was found to have flown cross-country using an expired boarding pass in someone else's name. And in June, the TSA concluded a six-month investigation at Honolulu International Airport, recommending that 36 screeners be fired for failing to follow proper security procedures in a recurring shift.

(LIST: 20 Reasons to Hate the Airlines)

Frances Romero is a writer-reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @frances_romero. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Testimony of a Betrayer: A Terrorist Operative in Chicago (Time.com)

David Headley is not on trial in Chicago's Everett McKinley Dirksen federal courthouse. But he is the star of the proceedings, the chief witness against a man who was once his friend. There is nothing ordinary about the case: it kicks off from Headley's confessed and key role as a perpetrator of one horrific terrorist attack - the three-day November 2008 assault on Mumbai - and details his part in planning another incident in Denmark, all in the quest to convict a former boarding school classmate, in part, for abetting Headley's own criminal actions.

For someone so tall and apparently sturdy, Headley, 50, speaks in a surprisingly soft voice, so soft that at several points during his testimony the court clerk and attorneys have asked him to speak up. But the testimony, when it is audible or read out loud from exhibits, is chilling, sending tremors halfway around the world and roiling the already unfriendly relations of nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan. (See photos of the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks.)

Headley says he cased Mumbai for the Army of the Righteous - Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) - the banned Pakistani extremist group accused of plotting the attack on India's financial capital. Under oath, he said that Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), provided financial and military guidance for Lashkar and other militant groups. "I assumed these groups were under the same umbrella," Headley said in court, identifying at least one ISI operative as an overseer of the Mumbai plot.

The original assault plan had focused on Mumbai's central train station, a Jewish community center that Headley believed was an outlet for Israel's secret service, a popular tourist cafe, a movie house, a school, a police station, a hospital and the landmark Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel. Lashkar leaders initially did not put Mumbai's upscale Oberoi Trident hotel on its list. But on a whim, Headley decided to take video and photographs of it and the hotel ultimately wound up on a target. Of the 160 people killed in the three-day Mumbai massacre, 32 were staff and guests at the Oberoi.

On his second day of testimony, Headley said that one of his ISI handlers, identified as "Major Iqbal," expressed disappointment that Mumbai's airport was not included among the targets. As for the attack on Mumbai's Jewish community center, Chabad House, the operative allegedly told Headley it "would be revenge" for Israeli actions against Palestinians. (See photos of the 2008 Mumbai attack.)

On the day the Mumbai attacks began, Headley was in Lahore, Pakistan, and received a text message that read: "Turn on the television." As he watched the initial reports, Headley recalls thinking, "I was pleased." By December 2008, he'd returned to the U.S. and said that he detailed to an alleged co-conspirator how the Mumbai attacks transpired, declaring, "We're even with India." That alleged co-plotter was Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 50, the man now on trial in Chicago, who looked blankly into the jury box as his former friend testified against him. In exchange for his cooperation with the U.S. government, Headley, who has confessed to his participation in the Mumbai and Danish plots, will not be extradited to India, Pakistan or Denmark for trial; federal prosecutors will also not seek the death penalty against him when he is sentenced. As for Rana, if he is convicted of conspiring to help Headley and other planners of terrorist attacks in Mumbai and Copenhagen, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

Rana first met Headley at a Pakistani military boarding school. At that time, Headley was called Daood Sayed Gilani, a transplant to Pakistan from his birthplace in Washington D.C., his father a Pakistani diplomat and his mother the daughter of a prominent American football player. It was the first of his many identities, which would shift through the years as he chose to collaborate with shadowy figures of his American and Pakistani existences.

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After his parents divorced, Headley was brought back to Pakistan by his father. At 17, he moved back to the U.S. to live with his mother in Philadelphia, apparently above a bar she owned called the Khyber Pass. Not much is known about Headley's early 20s in the U.S. but by the time he was 27 he would be arrested on his first drug charge - which would lead to the first time he cooperated with authorities to get a lesser sentence. He was 37 when he was arrested for smuggling heroin into the U.S. from Pakistan. Again, he chose to cooperate with the U.S. in exchange for a lenience, becoming a paid informant working in Pakistan for the federal government. At the same time, he may have begun his association with Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan. In fact, during altercations with the women he lived with in the U.S., law enforcement officials were told by the "wives" that Headley had terrorist ties. But even after 9/11, this apparently did not raise alarms in the U.S.

It was about 2006, that Headley officially dropped the name Daood Gilani and reconnected with Rana. As Rana's chief lawyer, Charlie Swift, would portray it, the rekindled friendship was a case of "the bad boy and the good boy" - with his client being the latter. Indeed, Rana's life had been one of striving and enterprise. Trained as a military doctor, he served with coalition forces in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf war against Saddam Hussein. He later chose to move to Canada where he became a citizen before finding his way to Chicago's large, prosperous South Asian community. Unable to get relicensed to practice medicine in the U.S., he became the business partner of an American and opened First World Immigration Service, an outfit which helped scientists, doctors and other professionals navigate through the U.S. immigration process. Tall, lean, professorial and pious, Rana would buy a farm in Kinsman, Illinois, about 80 miles southwest of Chicago, to grow and slaughter goats for halal markets across the Midwest. (Read "Alleged Chicago Jihadi: Key Role in the Mumbai Attacks?")

For Headley, Rana was a practical connection: his immigration business would provide cover for him to conduct surveillance trips into South Asia and other parts of the world. Headley testified that Rana "could be convinced to help us out." For Pakistan, India has always been the primal enemy, with the chief battleground the disputed region of Kashmir. The two countries have gone to war a number of times, with the Pakistani military coming off the worse for the most part. It is easy to believe that Headley and Rana, former classmates at a military academy, would have bonded over Pakistan's quest for Kashmir - cemented by the militant piety that Headley had been inculcated with by the LeT. Indeed, Headley testified that, apart from a focus on Kashmir, one of the goals of LeT was to wage jihad in retaliation against India's failure to protect its Muslim minority from violence.

Headley testified that he told Rana of nearly every aspect of his weeks-long combat training camps in Pakistan with the LeT, including why he changed his name - "Nobody would be able to tell I'm a Muslim or Pakistani." He said he played on Rana's guilt for having abandoned Pakistan's military and moving to Canada and the U.S. in order to win him over to waging the LeT's vision of jihad. Headley testified that Rana once believed that a military jihad could only truly be declared by a head of state, not a religious figure or any ordinary Muslim. Headley said he dismissed that belief and convinced Rana that jihad was a religious duty.

David Headley's declarations have so far taken center stage in this trial. They are explosive, but hardly unexpected. Indians do not need to be convinced that Pakistan was behind the Mumbai massacre. The Pakistani government, for its part, has consistently denied Headley's testimony, much of which has been familiar since he started cooperating with the U.S. after his arrest in October 2009. In the struggle between the two enemy nations, David Headley embodies certain truisms that either country would be loath to give up - and now appear to have the imprimatur of sworn testimony in a U.S. court of law.

But the legal procedures in Chicago, in the end, will not be about Headley but about the guilt or innocence of Tahawwur Hussain Rana. And if defense lawyers play it right, a jury may not need much help to puncture the claims of a prosecution star witness who has been willing to collaborate again and again with anyone willing to offer him an escape clause - in this specific instance, betraying a friend that he set up as an accomplice. Charlie Swift, Rana's chief defense attorney, knows there's one thing he must ultimately prove: "Rana was totally unaware of what he was getting into."

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Strauss-Kahn Conspiracy Theories and French Democracy (Time.com)

This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in Le Monde.

There is no end to the wild talk unleashed by Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest by the New York City police on May 14 over charges of sexual assault, unlawful imprisonment and attempted rape. As if the extraordinary nature of this affair and the mind-blowing - and dramatic - situation in which the former head of the International Monetary Fund now finds himself could justify the most extravagant of explanations.

Ever since the news first broke on Sunday, May 15, the notion that it was all a setup meant to bring down Strauss-Kahn has spread like wildfire, especially on the Internet. The world of imagination being boundless, each theory brought forward seems more surprising than the other: they point to the CIA or rivals inside the IMF, to big American banks or financial interests threatened by Strauss-Kahn's push for more regulation, to murky schemes by some "black Cabinet" working for Nicolas Sarkozy at the ElysEe Palace or even to Socialist Party rivals only too eager to get rid of a dangerous candidate ahead of the 2012 presidential elections. (See pictures from the career of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.)

Conspiracy theories have been fanned by the fact that certain political figures - supporters of Strauss-Kahn, among others - have seemed unwilling to exclude the possibility of a trap or manipulation. During an interview with the French newspaper LibEration that took place on April 28, Strauss-Kahn himself had alluded to the possibility that such a setup could be organized by his enemies.

To crown it all, a poll conducted on Monday, May 16, by the CSA Institute found that 57% of the French public believes that the former head of the IMF "is the victim of a plot," with the number reaching 70% among left-leaning voters.

Regardless of whether the poll in question is legal or not - the Guigou law adopted in 2000 requires that no such polls be taken about someone protected by the presumption of innocence - the inquiry reveals significant details about the state of mind in the country of "I think, therefore I am" philosopher RenE Descartes and beyond. (See why the 9/11 conspiracy theories won't go away.)

It is only normal that most people find this matter utterly shocking - and captivating - given that the alleged sex scandal involves one of the world's most powerful men, a potential candidate for the presidency of the French Republic. But does this mean we should suddenly stop analyzing the facts with caution and common sense? Obviously not. Unless we are ready to admit that challenging all authority, and especially the authority of justice (be it American, in this case), has now reached a disturbing point of no return. Unless we are ready to say that the media's investigative efforts no longer carry any weight compared with the crazy elucidations the Internet instantaneously spreads around the entire globe.

We should not again find ourselves so ready to surrender to the kind of frenzy of conspiracy theories that has spawned since the 9/11 attacks. Let us not forget that this phenomenon is one of the very sources of totalitarianism, a sign of a democracy in regression.

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The Long and Frustrating Hunt for One of America's Most Wanted (Psst: He's Not a Terrorist) (Time.com)

James Bulger's story reads like the plot of a thousand mobster films. An Irish-American boy grows up in the poor neighborhood of South Boston - Southie - turns to a life of crime and ends up leader of the Irish Mob. Smart, charismatic and generous to those he liked, Bulger - whose blond hair earned him the nickname Whitey - was both feared and revered. At the height of his power in the 1980s, he was allegedly taking a share of almost every drug deal and racketeering operation in Boston.

But since 1995, Bulger, now 81, has been on the run. He fled the city, and probably the U.S., after receiving a tip from the FBI agent he had worked with as an informant that an indictment for federal racketeering was on its way. In the years that Bulger - who is also accused of 19 counts of murder, extortion and drug dealing - has been a fugitive, several of his Mob associates have been arrested and, in some cases, served time. The FBI handler who helped him escape, John Connolly, is currently in prison for his role in the 1982 killing of a businessman who was about to testify against members of Bulger's gang. (Top 10 Unsolved Crimes.)

There are more than 60,000 fugitives worldwide at any given time, most of whom manage to disappear across international borders, according to Interpol, the global police body tasked with facilitating cooperation among its 188 member countries. And only a small fraction of those fugitives are high-profile crime figures like Bulger. It may have been a stretch when, speaking to the U.S. magazine the Atlantic on May 2, the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. excused his government's inability to track down Osama bin Laden by pointing to the FBI's failure to find Whitey. But the long, fruitless hunt for Bulger is a perfect example of just how hard it is to track a criminal who has fled to another country.

In 2000 the FBI's Boston branch created a unit with the single purpose of finding the runaway Mob boss. Since then, a team has been following leads across the U.S. and to South America and Asia. Currently the task force thinks he could be in Europe. But even there, where criminals are up against some of the world's best-organized police forces, the search is painfully slow. International crime fighting is painstaking work, and even democracies that cooperate with one another on a whole range of policy matters are reluctant to give up their national prerogatives when it comes to law enforcement. (Top 10 Notorious Fugitives.)

If Bulger went home to Southie today, he'd find the place much as he left it. The streets are still lined with dollar shops, liquor stores and squat, run-down wooden homes. But Bulger isn't going home. In January 1995 the FBI was readying racketeering charges against him. When former FBI agent Connolly, who had become close to the mobster, heard about the indictment, he warned his old friend. Bulger and his girlfriend Catherine Greig drove out of Southie for good. Almost everything the FBI knows about their movements since has come from interviews with people who knew Bulger, along with clues picked up from searches of his Boston properties. The file on Bulger runs to more than 13,000 separate documents. By talking with FBI task-force members (many of whom asked to remain anonymous for the safety of their families) about what's in that file, it's possible to build a picture that could give clues as to the kind of life Bulger's living. [MP3 {2071297}]

It's not an easy case. In 2001, Bulger's younger brother William - the former president of the Massachusetts state senate for a record 18 years - testified before a federal grand jury in Boston that he had spoken only once to Whitey after he fled, soon after the escape. Six years later, federal prosecutors decided not to press charges in a criminal investigation into whether William had obstructed efforts to find his brother. "It's really difficult to get people to talk to us, because of political patronage and a community over in South Boston that owes loyalty to the Bulger family," says Richard Teahan, coordinator of the Bulger task force.

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A few people have been talking, though, and indeed, what they've said suggests Bulger could be in Europe. His old Mob associates told the task force he used to say that when it came time to split, he would go there. As far back as the late 1970s, Bulger had been collecting fake passports and setting up bank accounts and safe-deposit boxes in various cities around the U.S. and Europe. "He knew that at some point, based on his criminal history, he was going to have to become a fugitive for the rest of his life," says an investigator on the case. "He talked about that openly with his associates."

Bulger holds an Irish passport - obtained through his parents, both Irish immigrants to the U.S. - so traveling to and from Europe would be easy for him. And once inside the Schengen zone of 25 European countries, travel is passport-free. (Neither Ireland nor Britain, though, is a member of the Schengen zone.) From at least as far back as 1986 until 1994, Bulger traveled to Europe once or twice a year. Each time, the FBI believes, he took with him large amounts of cash, totaling tens of millions of dollars. The last confirmed sighting of Bulger was in London in 2002, by a businessman who also remembered seeing him working out in the gym of the MEridien Hotel in London's Piccadilly Circus eight years earlier. So while the hunt for Bulger continues around the world, the task force is keeping a close eye on Europe. The team has an idea of which country Bulger is possibly living in but won't say for fear of alerting him. "That would be putting our playbook out there," says Teahan. (Top 10 Evil Lairs.)

Without the authority to investigate beyond the U.S., the FBI is at the mercy of Europe's police in its search for Bulger. It's a problem faced by any law-enforcement agency working across borders - which, in the days of the Internet and globalization, is all of them. "Fugitives are mobile and opportunistic," says Ronald K. Noble, secretary general of Interpol. And because many of them fund their flight from the law by committing more crimes, that often means "multiple criminal charges in more than one country, therefore involving multiple jurisdictions, different legal systems and linguistic differences." These days, the best way for police agencies to catch a fugitive is to work together. "This is important when criminals ignore borders and when criminal networks establish links that span the globe," says Noble.

Organizations like Interpol and Europol (the European Police Office) find their jobs have become a little easier over the past decade, thanks to E.U. legislation that has simplified the process of bringing international criminals to justice. When the European arrest warrant was introduced in 2003 - replacing often convoluted bilateral extradition agreements - the time it took to get a suspect extradited went from as long as a year to as little as 10 days. (When Swedish authorities wanted to question WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on sex-crime allegations late last year, it was a European arrest warrant that allowed British police to hold him in custody while Sweden pushed for his extradition.) (See TIME's interview with Julian Assange.)

Meanwhile, since 2000, police agencies have been allowed to set up joint investigation teams that let one nation's police force extend some of its powers to another for a limited time. "We're seeing organized-crime groups becoming more fluid, multinational and multiethnic," says Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, which deals with 14,000 cross-border operations a year. "The E.U. has given us the tools and built the architecture to help us get a grip on organized crime. Now it's up to us to use these capabilities to their maximum."

But while Europe's police forces have the tools to work together, they don't always use them. Sometimes the impulse to protect sources or the hesitancy of investigators to work alongside people they don't know - and so don't trust - overrides the need for cooperation. "You still have the old-school detectives who are reluctant to work on investigations that are outside their own jurisdiction," says Wainwright. "But now there isn't a single major criminal case that isn't international in nature. The reality of the challenge has changed."

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Have You Seen This Man?
He loves dogs and doesn't use credit cards. He may be on heart medication. He has a thick Boston accent that he probably couldn't hide even if he tried. These are the things the FBI wants people to know about Bulger, the traits they hope someone will recognize in the elderly man living down the street.

Bulger, for example, may have cultivated a nice-guy demeanor, but he probably still has a controlling streak. The task force has heard stories of his taking people to dinner and then yelling at the waitress if her bra strap was showing. "He takes over every conversation," says one task-force member. "If you were to use the wrong fork, he would correct you on that. He can't help himself." (Top 10 Real-Life Mob Bosses.)

Those are the kinds of details the FBI hopes will ensnare him. Bulger can dye his hair or shave his mustache, but changing his personality isn't as easy. "He's a person who does things very deliberately," says another investigator on the case. On the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, Bulger is described as "armed and extremely dangerous." As a young man, he carried a knife in his boot, and "he could still be doing that now," says the investigator.

But Bulger is also an octogenarian and, as far as anyone knows, hasn't committed a crime in over 15 years. Those on the task force say that's irrelevant: the U.S. has no statute of limitations for murder. "There are a lot of families of the victims, and you can't close the door to them," says one investigator. "They want to see him brought to justice." (Top 10 Prison Escapes.)

In South Boston, Bulger still casts a long shadow. Locals don't talk to strangers about him, so at home, his infamy is his best protection against ever being caught. In Europe, he would be just an old man with an accent. That anonymity makes it easy for him to avoid suspicion. But those tracking him hope that one day it will also prove his undoing.
With reporting by Stefanie Friedhoff / Boston

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