Report: Fugitive Octagenarian Irish Mobster Whitey Bulger Arrested in California

Reports are circulating on the Wednesday night that 81 year old fugitive Winter Hill Gang leader James 'Whitey' Bulger was arrested in the Los Angeles area with his 60 year old girlfriend, Catherine Greig.

The two were arrested without incident, the FBI said. The FBI had been conducting a surveillance operation in the area where the arrest was made, Santa Monica police Sgt. Rudy Flores said.

Bulger- or "the guy who's picture is up at the Post Office" as he's been referred to for most of my adult life- was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang when he fled in January 1995 after being tipped by a former Boston FBI agent that he was about to be indicted. Bulger was a top-echelon FBI informant.

Over the years, the FBI battled a public perception that it had not tried very hard to find Bulger, who became a huge source of embarrassment for the agency after the extent of his crimes and the FBI's role in overlooking them became public.

Prosecutors said he went on the run after being warned by John Connolly Jr., an FBI agent who had made Bulger an FBI informant 20 years earlier. Connolly was convicted of racketeering in May 2002 for protecting Bulger and his cohort, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, also an FBI informant.

As head of the Winter Hill gang, Bulger would provide information to the FBI about the rival Patriarcha family out of Providence, RI while enjoying a degree of protection from the Boston office of the FBI thanks to former Agent Connolly.

Bulger had been on the run for the last 16 years and was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for his suspected role in at least 19 murders. Since then, there has been sporadic reports of Bulger browsing bookstores in western Canada or dying of natural causes and being cremated in Central America. The last reliable sighting of Whitey Bulger was reportedly in London in 2002 when a British businessman who had met Bulger a few years prior saw the fugitive in a hotel gym.

Most recently, the FBI manhunt focused on Bulger's girlfriend, with TV bulletins showing Greig and Bulger together.

Bulger's younger brother William was elected to the state senate and President of UMass, while the FBI suspected he might've been aware of his older brother's criminal activities and may have sporadically been in contact with him.

Report: 81 Year Old Fugitive Whitey Bulger Dead, Cremated in Central America

Reports are circulating over the weekend that fugitive octigenarian extortionist, murderer and drug trafficker James J. 'Whitey' Bulger had recently died of a heart attack in Costa Rica and his girlfriend had the remains cremated.

A fugutive since December 1994 and on the FBI's 10 most wanted list since 1999, Bulger is wanted by the Justice Department and prosecutors in Boston for multiple counts of murder, drug trafficking, extortion and RICO viloations.

Throughout the 1980s, Bulger leveraged his relationship with FBI agent John Connolly and Massachusetts State Police Lt. Richard Schneiderhan as well as his own status as an informant to eliminate rivals or informants and consolidate power as his Providence, RI-based rivals in the Patriarca crime family were left reeling after a series of Federal indictments.

A year ago, FBI agents and police in British Columbia, Canada were canvassing bookstores around the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island in search of Bulger. So far, the FBI has remained skeptical regarding the latest rumor about Bulger's death and cremation in Central America.

Here is the official statement from the Boston FBI office, as delivered by Special Agent Gregory Comcowich:

“The FBI has no credible information to indicate that Bulger is deceased. Until the FBI receives credible verified information that he has died, the FBI will continue its fugitive investigation.”

As one of Whitey's victims put it: “If I were Whitey, this is exactly the story I’d want out there. Not only is he dead, but the body is gone.” But then again, considering that it was almost a year ago to the day that the Feds were looking for Bulger in Canada, this latest rumor could be a hoax pulled off by the remnants of the Winter Hill gang or Bulger himself.

[Hat Tip: Howie Carr; Friends of Ours]