Woodkirk Stone
Copyright © 2022 Albuquerque Journal
The FBI has been chasing bank robbers since the 1930s, when John Dillinger and his gang robbed banks during the Great Depression.
Now, federal agents, aided by local authorities in Albuquerque, are trying to track down at least 16 unidentified men responsible for a deluge of bank robberies that have plagued the Albuquerque area since early December. Some thefts took place on the same day, according to an FBI website.
Since the FBI surged in early December, some 20 bank robberies and one attempted bank robbery have been reported in the Albuquerque area, according to the FBI’s website. Another bank robbery took place in Santa Fe.
Compare that to the number of bank robberies in New Mexico reported by the FBI in 2020: just 12. There were 20 bank robberies reported in 2019. FBI bank robbery data was not immediately available Friday. for 2021.
Most of the Albuquerque bank robberies that have occurred since the recent spike remain unsolved, according to federal records.
At least two of those wanted were listed as serial bank robbers on the FBI website, according to the bankrobbers.fbi.gov website.
One of them is believed to be responsible for at least eight bank robberies dating back to September 28. Another robbed three banks in the span of a week in Albuquerque, the website says.
“We find that most of our bank robberies involve people who have substance abuse issues. Some of these people need social services,” said Frank Fisher, FBI spokesman in Albuquerque.
Fisher said the FBI feared the thieves would become more emboldened if they didn’t get caught.
“We need to protect the public and get a person who commits bank robberies off the street because that person has an increased likelihood of hurting someone,” Fisher told the Journal in an interview Friday, less than an hour before him, the FBI agents. and Albuquerque police responded to another robbery at an Uptown Albuquerque bank.
In this case, an unknown man with a handgun and wearing a “Gas Monkey Garage” jacket fled after demanding and receiving an undisclosed sum of money from a cashier.
Just two days earlier, another man, wearing a tracksuit and carrying a handgun, defied Wednesday’s winter storm to attempt to rob a bank branch at a Walmart store at 301 San Mateo SE. He left without getting any money.
All bank robberies are investigated by the FBI, Fisher said.
“It’s been our bread and butter since the 1930s, when banks became federally insured,” Fisher said. “We’ve been chasing bank robbers since John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd.”
The FBI still publishes wanted posters, similar to those once posted in US post offices. These days, the agency places wanted notices on bankrobbers.fbi.gov, a nationwide website, seeking advice from the public. The website features photos taken by bank security cameras and descriptions of thieves whose identities are unknown.
But identifying the men from surveillance footage is a challenge because all of the thieves were wearing face masks, which must be worn in indoor public places under COVID pandemic protocols.
Most wore baseball caps; one wore a black fedora with a gold band.
In the past two months, two men have been federally charged with bank robberies or attempted robberies in the Albuquerque area. Andres Manuel Castro was charged in a Jan. 25 bank robbery inside a Walmart on Coors. Boul. Castro allegedly had money from the robbery leaking out of his pockets when he was located by Albuquerque police after fleeing the bank on foot, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Angel Lara, 33, is awaiting trial on a federal charge of attempted bank robbery filed Dec. 1 after he was charged with attempting to rob a West Side bank on Nov. 30. During an hour-long standoff with Albuquerque police, he demanded they shoot him. , a criminal complaint alleges.
Lara hinted he had a gun in his jacket, according to an FBI complaint, but then said he “wasn’t there to hurt anyone because his parents were in trouble”.
Just last week, a 54-year-old Boulder, Colorado man who confessed to a September 23 bank robbery in southwest Albuquerque appeared before a U.S. magistrate in Albuquerque .
In Jason Deane’s case, he allegedly said he feared for his life and decided to rob a Bank of the West because he ‘thought he might be safer in jail’, a complaint alleges criminal.
After robbing the bank, Deane allegedly made his getaway on an orange motorbike and sped west to Albuquerque where he stopped at the Route 66 Casino. He then told a casino employee to call the police. because “he had just robbed a bank in Albuquerque,” the complaint states.
Deane, whose criminal history dates back at least three decades, chose not to contest a U.S. prosecutor’s motion to hold him pending trial. If convicted on the federal bank robbery charge, Deane faces up to 20 years in federal prison. Under federal law, bank robberies involving the use of a weapon carry a 25-year sentence.
Fisher stressed that bank robbery is not a “victimless crime.”
For example, when Lara allegedly asked a Wells Fargo bank teller for money on November 30, two customers and some bank employees were able to run out of the building, but six tellers were trapped behind the counter, according to a criminal complaint. After the police arrived on the scene to speak to Lara, the cashiers managed to hide in a closet until he was arrested.
Fisher said he saw tellers so distraught after a bank robbery that they were hyperventilating.
“These cashiers, it’s very traumatic for them, for someone to say ‘if you don’t give me money, I’m going to blow your brains out,'” Fisher said. “No one, I don’t think even law enforcement, is going to work with this expectation. At least law enforcement can defend themselves.