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Search for Whitey Bulger turns to Canada

E-mail|Link|Comments () April 20, 2010 02:14 PM

By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff

The FBI's hunt for former South Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger has shifted to Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.

An FBI rendering of what Bulger might look like now.

Authorities circulated posters of the 80-year-old Bulger and his girlfriend, 59-year-old Catherine Greig around the oceanfront city of Victoria last week, according to Gail Marcinkiewicz, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Boston.

"It's just part of our outreach to locate where Bulger might be,'' said Marcinkiewicz, adding that the FBI has no specific information that the gangster is hiding in Victoria. "Whitey could probably be anywhere. We're just trying to reach all logical places.''

Bulger, a long-time FBI informant, fled more than 15 years ago and is wanted for 19 murders in the 1970s and 1980s, in Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and in Florida.

A manager of a Victoria bookstore, who declined to be identified, said authorities had visited just about every bookstore in the city last week and asked employees to be on the lookout for Bulger, one of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted.

"They came in and just gave us a wanted poster and asked us if we recognized him because he's known to be a book reader,'' he said. The manager said he didn't recognize Bulger and didn't believe he'd spotted him in the area.

But he added, "There's a $2 million reward, so if we see him we'll let the right people know about it."

Bulger fled just before he was indicted on federal racketeering charges in Boston in January 1995. The FBI is offering a $2 million reward for information leading to his capture.