Senior Citizen Bandit may be Bulger

LOS ANGELES, July 15 (UPI) -- Police in Southern California think an elderly man who robbed three banks in the past week might be legendary South Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger.

The so-called Senior Citizen Bandit robbed a bank in San Juan Capistrano on July 8, and followed that up with another bank job on Tuesday in Seal Beach, south of Los Angeles. On Thursday, he robbed a bank in the seaside city of Laguna Niguel.

Bulger is one of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives. Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Los Angeles office, told the Los Angeles Times investigators are speculating about whether he is the Senior Citizen Bandit.

"But although we can't say it's absolutely not him," she said, "we really don't think it is."

There was an unconfirmed sighting of Bulger in Orange County in January 2000, two months after "America's Most Wanted" did a segment on him.

The FBI says Bulger was involved in a string of organized crime-related murders in the 1970s and '80s, while he was an FBI informant. Bulger allegedly controlled much of Boston's drug traffic.

His younger brother, William M. Bulger, was formerly president of the Massachusetts Senate and of the University of Massachusetts.