Mistaken Identity

Imagine. The FBI wrongly identifies you as a heinous criminal suspected of 21 murders, drug dealing and blackmail. And as if it that weren't bad enough, it shows your picture to the nation on primetime TV.

It's enough to make you paranoid. And it's exactly what happened to a law-abiding German citizen, whose face was beamed into households around the country last Friday night while a voiceover named him as James "Whitey" Bulger, former Alcatraz inmate and head of Boston's notorious Winter Hill Gang.

Crime kingpin

The FBI has been hunting James J. Bulger since 1999, and has offered a $1 million (664,000 euros) reward for any information leading to his capture.

An organized crime kingpin, he and his lover Catherine Greig have been on the run for years. After sightings in London in 2002 and Uruguay two years later, US investigators recently decided to go public with the case on "Aktenzeichen XY…ungelöst," Germany's answer to "America's Most Wanted," convinced that the pair was currently traveling through Europe.

Oops

Maybe they are -- and maybe they aren't. They certainly weren't the couple featured in the footage watched by 5.11 million viewers.

The TV station fielded 25 calls after airing the footage -- a record response for the show -- including one from a panicked German couple who recognized themselves in the picture innocently holidaying in Taormina on the island of Sicily.

They now have a lot of explaining to do to the neighbors.

At least the Feds are happy

The show insisted that this is the first time in its 40-year-history that such an error has been made and tried to play down the gaffe. Apparently, they said, the Feds are very pleased with the outcome. Well, that's OK then.

"The FBI is glad it can give up on a lead it has been following for a year," said the show's spokeswoman, Margit Preiss, somewhat insensitively. "The FBI simply gave us the photo and neither we nor the German investigators realized that the Americans were looking for the right person with the wrong picture."

The couple's lawyers, meanwhile, have described the incident as a "serious breach of their personal rights and are still to decide whether they will settle with an apology.