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Couple Mistaken For Whitey Bulger, Girlfriend

Pair Detained By Police With Guns Drawn

POSTED: 8:51 am EDT October 14, 2007
UPDATED: 12:30 pm EDT October 14, 2007

An older couple from Wisconsin is the latest pair to find that now might not be the best time to take a trip to Italy.

Boston Herald















Since the FBI released surveillance video of fugitive mobster James “Whitey” Bulger and his girfriend, Catherine Greig, Italian police have detained couples who bear even the slightest resemblance to the two.

George and Iris Weiland of Madison, Wis., said they were waiting to take a sightseeing tour last month, when police surrounded their tram with guns drawn.

“The police just said he was a bad guy and they were looking for him. I didn’t realize he was one of the 10 Most Wanted,” George Weiland told The Boston Herald. Weiland, 77, said he sees little resemblance between himself and the mobster.

Weiland and his wife were detained for five hours, during which he said he treated “professionally” by Italian police.

Italian police have have been searching for Bulger and Greig since the FBI released a video of a look-alike couple walking in Taormina, Sicily. Several American couples have been interrogated.

Bulger has been a fugitive since January of 1995, when he fled after being indicted for 21 counts of murder.

Weiland told The Herald that the experience, makes “one hell of a story,” and that he has e-mailed his story to friends and family.

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