Mistaken identity

Two people saw what they thought were masked bank robbers in a car with tinted windows in front of a bank and called police, but the occupants turned out not to be thieves but children in Halloween masks.

The two women in the small northern town of Bad Zwischenahn in Germany separately spotted the vehicle, police say. But it took off before police arrived.

Authorities picked it up two hours later and detained the driver and three passengers - children in Halloween costumes.

"We got a call that there were 'masked people in front of a bank' and assumed it was a hold-up," officer Juergen Harms said. "After we brought the man and the children in ... we were able to quickly establish it was a case of mistaken identity. It was hard for the witnesses to see that it was three children wearing Halloween masks," he said, adding police had thanked the women for being observant.