James “Whitey” Bulger, Boston mob boss, caught (VIDEO)

Notorious Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger, who became no. 1 on the FBI's most-wanted list when Osama bin Laden was killed, has been arrested after 16 years on the run and an international manhunt, the FBI announced.

Bulger, 81, the boss of the Winter Hill Gang who was wanted for his alleged role in 19 murders during the 1970s and '80s, was taken into custody along with his longtime moll girlfriend Catherine Greig at an apartment in Santa Monica,  California.

Bulger and Greig were using the aliases Charles and Carol Gasko, the Associated Press reports.

The arrest took place days after a publicity campaign and media blitz aired pictures of Bulger, who had a $2 million reward on his head, on daytime TV shows such as "The View” and “Live with Regis and Kelly," the FBI reportedly said.

The FBI on Tuesday began running public service announcements in 14 U.S. cities to bring attention to Catherine Greig, 60, Bulger’s longtime girlfriend accused of harboring a fugitive, with hopes that the publicity would lead to quality tips about Bulger's whereabouts.

FBI agents acted on a tip from the campaign, said Steven Martinez, FBI assistant director in Los Angeles, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

At the same time as he was boss of the mostly Irish South Boston mob, Bulger was an FBI informant, supplying information about the rival New England Mafia, the Associated Press reports.

Bulger helped the Boston FBI by providing information on other mobsters at a time when, as the AP put it, "bringing down the Mafia was one of the FBI's top national priorities."

He fled in January 1995 when an agent tipped him off that he was about to be indicted.

"That set off a major scandal at the FBI, which was found to have an overly cozy relationship with its underworld informants, protecting mob figures and allowing them to carry out their murderous business as long as they were supplying useful information," the AP writes.

Bulger was the inspiration for the ruthless gangland boss in the 2006 Martin Scorsese movie "The Departed."

According to the AP:

One victim was shot between the eyes in a parking lot at his country club in Oklahoma. Another was gunned down in broad daylight on a South Boston street to prevent him from talking about the killing in Oklahoma. Others were taken out for running afoul of Bulger's gambling enterprises.

Others were taken out for running afoul of Bulger's gambling enterprise.

"He left a trail of bodies," said Tom Duffy, a retired state police major in Massachusetts. "You did not double-cross him. If you did, you were dead."

The Boston Globe reports that Miami prosecutors intend to try Bulger for the 1982 murder of jai alai executive John Callahan. "Former FBI agent John Connolly was convicted of murder in 2008 for telling Bulger that Callahan was cooperating with investigators looking into Bulger's role in the 1981 slaying of Oklahoma businessman Roger Wheeler."

Florida and Oklahoma have the death penalty, the paper points out.