LOS ANGELES — Two FBI agents on their lunch break captured a man alleged to be the “Fanny Pack Bandit,” a bank robber who carried out a nine-month crime spree.

The bandit robbed banks from Manhattan Beach to Santa Monica, often carrying off his haul in a fanny pack.

On Saturday, Special Agents Michael Haas and Steve Morris looked up from their salads in a Brentwood restaurant to see a man outside a Bank of America carrying a bank bag with red smoke billowing from it – smoke that often comes from exploding pepper-spray-laced dye packs banks used to deter robbers.

The man ran as agents approached, but Haas caught him a few blocks later, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. The man was carrying $1,256 in cash, authorities said. He was identified as Peter Soren Walsky, 45. Walsky appeared Tuesday before a federal magistrate judge on a single charge of bank robbery and was held in lieu of $400,000 bail. Arraignment was set for Sept. 20.

An FBI affiidavit stated that Walsky confessed to the Brentwood robbery and nine others. FBI officials said they are interviewing witnesses in those cases before bringing additional charges.