After a string of brazen bank robberies, FBI agents are searching for suspects who they fear may become more violent if not apprehended soon.
FBI officials say there has been a string of armed bank robberies in recent months in which the suspects have made off with large sums as they target vaults rather than just the tellers’ cash drawers. There have been more than 20 bank robberies in the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia since early August.
Earlier this month, a man brandishing an assault-style rifle and another man with a silver revolver robbed a Wachovia Bank at 4302 Connecticut Ave. NW, taking cash from tellers and the vault.
In April, a man and a woman wielding semiautomatic handguns hit an independent bank in Northwest. FBI officials believe the couple struck different branches of the same bank again in late August and once more in early September. All three robberies combined have yielded more than $100,000.
And on Thursday, two men armed with handguns robbed a Commerce Bank at 16714 Jefferson Davis Highway in Woodbridge, Prince William County police said. A third man waited outside in the getaway vehicle.
Bank robbers come from a variety of backgrounds, said Special Agent Jeff Johannes, who focuses on bank robberies in the region and works in the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “It’s a crime of the mind,” he said.
Some robbers are drug addicts looking for quick cash, others are thrill seekers with already full bank accounts, Johannes said. Some pick the trade up along the way, others learn it behind bars.
But they all have one thing in common.
“It rarely ends with just one robbery,” he said. “They get quick and easy cash and they go again. The robber becomes more sure of himself. They start bringing a weapon, they become more likely to assault someone.”
In 2003 and 2004, a gang of commando-style robbers terrorized six banks in the District and Maryland, ripping off about $360,000 as they wielded assault rifles smuggled in from Iraq, an FBI probe later found. Their violence grew and culminated with the gang opening fire inside the banks and shooting at police.
So far, the latest string of robbers haven’t pulled their triggers, a general rarity in bank robberies.
And to help make sure that doesn’t happen, law enforcement officials are blanketing the region with wanted posters and the FBI has set up an online database of pictures to get the public’s help, Johannes said.
Those pictures can be found at www.bankbandits.org. Anyone with information should call the FBI Washington Field Office at 202-278-2000.
