FBI verifies that Sicily video doesn't show Bulger

By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff

The FBI verified today that a couple videotaped in Sicily last year who resembled fugitive gangster James "Whitey" Bulger and his girlfriend were, in fact, two harmless German tourists.

The couple came forward after a German television show broadcast the video last week with an appeal from FBI agents from Boston.

The photos and video of the couple were removed from the FBI’s website today after it was confirmed that they did not show Bulger and Catherine Greig, said spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz. However, the international manhunt for Bulger will persist.

"We're going to continue our worldwide media outreach to arrest Mr. Bulger and his companion,'' Marcinkiewicz said.

A vacationing federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent took the video of an elderly couple strolling through the resort city of Taormina last April because he believed they bore a striking resemblance to the fugitives, but he never confronted them, law enforcement officials said. The FBI posted a portion of the video and still photographs from the video on its website last September and launched a worldwide media blitz to find the couple.

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