Yes I am defending Boston cause I know how things worked around here. You just repeated what we the rest of us said about Salemme and I said please don't mention Martorano or Weeks cause everyone knows the story with that whole debacle. But Red Shea never gave up any cartels. He got his coke through Bulger at first and theb switched to a latino in Miami, but he had no idea what or if this guy was a cartel member. He did 12yrs for his drug crimes and came back to Southie with open arms. If Red was going to rat then why wouldn't he just rat on Whitey and Stevie when he found out through the Italians that his bosses were rats. He could have ratted at that point and walked away scott free, but he didn't, he did his time. Maybe your thinking of Eddie Mckenzie who was the biggest bollshitting liar around here. He's the one who ratted on cartel members when he got busted. And as JCB stated no one is gonna touch a rat these days cause the feds would rain down a shit storm on the criminal underworld, and that goes for all places, not just Boston. Killing rats was a thing of the past when people found out someone was an informant, but as soon as that rats being protected by the feds, he is not gonna get touched. And I hear ya ratting is ratting no matter what, but if someone killed your mother, father, brother or sister and you knew who it was and didn't get the chance to kill the person, you wouldn't tell you knew who killed a family member?