The Hindu Business Line : Can FBI net the cyber-fugitive?

REMEMBER India's Most Wanted, the television programme that had the paranoid on the edge of their seats...till it turned out that the police believed that the gentleman anchoring it could, well, help them with their inquiries?

Those who firmly believe that their neighbours are crooks on the lam were a bit miffed by the turn of events, but they can now turn to the Net for solace and validation - if cops in India get down to figuring out how to post things on it in something approaching real time.

Like the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which has recently started running pop-up banner ads on the various Web sites owned and operated by the Terra Lycos network to track down criminals on its "Ten Most Wanted" list. The office of the US Attorney's and the FBI in Boston has announced that the first-ever FBI Most Wanted banner ad had been placed on the Lycos home page, featuring a wanted poster for James `Whitey' Bulger, identified as a "organised crime figure" of that city. The enterprising Bulger, the world's first cyber-fugitive, is apparently being sought in connection with an impressive array of charges ranging from murder to racketeering to extortion to money laundering.

A native of Boston, he has been on the list since August 1999, and, free enterprise being what it is, the Government is offering a $1 million reward for information that leads to his capture.

With the introduction of pop-up banner advertising, Web users will no longer have to visit the FBI's home page to keep track of the Top Ten list, which has been posted there since 1995.

Federal budgets being what they are, FBI is not paying for the ads.

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