In the 1996 version of World and USA, you can sometimes see witnesses who use the same sprites as the VILE henchmen. Which means they are theoretically tattling on each other.
In World, the witnesses who are later outed as VILE henchmen will, in any country that's not the one where you're able to make an arrest of another VILE henchman, always speak in the same voice (with the same greeting and parting lines), meaning it's always the same person. It's sketchier in USA, where character models that belonged to crooks in World get recycled as regular tourists and can randomly speak in different voices with different greeting and parting lines.
Fridge Brilliance: This either could be a case where they simply have someone who looks like them (which isn't implausible) or they are trying to mislead you - as their hints are generally vague and can apply to many different people. You can sometimes even find someone who looks nearly identical to the thief, but their sprites are always the same once you know who the crook is.
