FBI launch daytime TV ad campaign in an attempt to nab James ‘Whitey’ Bulger

Click here to see a photo gallery of James "Whitey" Bulger

James ‘Whitey’ Bulger has been arrested. The notorious Irish American gangster from Boston, wanted for at least 19 murders, was caught in Santa Barbara, California by the FBI.

He was head of the ‘FBI Most Wanted list’ and had a $2 million price tag on his head. He had been on the run for 16 years after a rogue FBI agent had tipped him off he was about to be arrested for murder.

Bulger, like Osama Bin Laden, had his own special FBI unit dedicated to his capture. They were the only two with such a distinction.

It is believed an FBI campaign aimed at  Bulger’s companion, Catherine Greig, who has been on the run with him, led to the arrest on Wednesday night at a private residence.

The FBI has focused on Greig and had run advertisements about her and the reward on women orientated shows.

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Greig they said, had had numerous plastic surgeries, got her teeth cleaned very frequently and was a dog lover.

The arrest was announced by the FBI in Los Angeles and Boston. The agency confirmed that it was the focus on Greig that had led to the tip off.

Just last Monday F.B.I. agents announced their ads. “There is someone in the United States or elsewhere in the world who knows Catherine Greig as a neighbor, friend or co-worker,” Special Agent Richard DesLauriers said.

One tipster has previously stated he saw Bulger watching the Boston gangster movie “The Departed” based in part on him in a role played by Jack Nicholson at a theater in San Diego in 2006.

Bulger, whose parents were Irish-born, is a brother of former Massachusetts Senate President William Bulger, and was known to have obtained an Irish passport through his parents. It was speculated at one point that he was on the lam in Ireland.