With rising inflation, rampant greedflation, stagnant wages, and a rising cost of living, people continue to turn to bank robberies to supplement their income. While we can’t recommend this to our readers, we understand the motivation. To combat this old hobby, however, banks have started to integrate more complex strategies to foil those robberies.
Robbery Countermeasures
A vault door.
Banks use dye packs, bait money, armed guards, good customer service, cash recyclers, cash dispensers, higher teller counters with barriers, surveillance cameras, GPS devices in money bags, “man-traps,” customer greeters, sequentially numbered bills or “bait money”, offering rewards for leads to capture thieves, and better authentication methods.
Dye Packs are discreetly slipped in between stacks of bills and then a sensor at the door triggers the pack to explode, covering the money in brightly colored dye, rendering it unusable. A man trap is a way to trap a robber in the vestibule of a bank until authorities can apprehend them. Surprisingly, the simplest way that a bank can deter robberies is just by having staff make eye contact and greet every patron immediately upon entry.
Despite this, successful bank robberies happen every year, here are some of the most recent ones.
#1 Citizens Bank, Philadelphia 2024
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- Date: 09/04/2024
- Bank: TD, Citizens Bank,
- Tactic: Demand Note
- Picture: No
The suspect in a series of three bank robberies on 08/29/24, 08/26/24, and 09/04/2024 in Northeast Philadelphia is still at large. The suspect is considered armed and dangerous and used a demand note to communicate his intentions. This is also known for using “non-verbal intimidation,” which lengthens the response time from demand to other employees being alerted to the situation.
#2 Carlisle, Iowa 2024
Des Moines, Iowa.
- Location: Carlisle, Iowa
- Date: 09/07/2024
- Bank: First Interstate Bank
- Tactic: Demand Note
- Picture: Yes
A white male with brown hair, a bald spot, glasses, and a surgical mask handed a bank teller a demand note. The suspect appeared to have a handgun in his waistband and displayed the firearm to the bank teller after slipping them the note. The note simply stated that he had a gun. He left with an unknown amount of money.
#3 Skokie, Illinois 2024
Skokie, Illinois.
- Location: Skokie, Illinois
- Date: 4/27/2024
- Bank: Chase Bank
- Tactic: Verbal Demand
- Picture: No
A Black male with black hair, and a clean-shaven face, around 5’7”, in his 20s robbed a Chase Bank on a Monday morning in Skokie. The suspect verbally demanded money and stated that he had a gun. He was wearing a patterned zip-up hoodie, a puffer jacket, a ski mask, black sunglasses, and Dr. Martens boots. After leaving with the money, he hopped on a CTA bus 1547 that was traveling Route 97 which ends the Chicago CTA Red Line Howard Station to escape.
#4 Monroe, Washington 2009
Bellevue, Washington.
- Date: 09/21/2009
- Bank: Bank of America
- Tactic: Mace, Craigslist
- Picture: No
The suspect recruited people as a diversion on Craigslist before executing the robbery. The advertisement was for a $28.50 per hour job looking for road maintenance workers. Applicants were instructed to meet near the bank and told to wear what the suspect was wearing: a blue shirt, yellow vest, safety goggles, and a respirator mask. After the Robbery, the suspect sprayed the armed guard with mace and shed clothes before escaping on an innertube down the Skykomish River. There were about 13 decoy suspects hanging around the bank, unaware of the robbery, thinking they had been stood up.
#5 Tonawanda, New York 2016
Tonawanda, New York.
- Date: 01/09/2016
- Bank: Evans Bank
- Tactic: handgun
- Picture: No
Two suspects held up Evans Bank in Tonawanda just before the bank was about to close. One suspect jumped over the teller counter. The robbers had ski masks on, and escaped with an unknown amount of money. The police caught them plus one other man at a motel two miles away from the bank. One of the men is currently in custody, but the other two suspects escaped via car, initiating a high-speed chase where they outran police.
#6 Akron, Ohio 2022
Akron, Ohio.
- Date: 5/26/2022
- Bank: U.S. Bank
- Tactic: Demand Note
- Picture: Yes
Two men who were wearing surgical masks, hoodies, and sunglasses robbed a bank via demand note at 1 PM. It was stated on the note that the pair were armed, and one suspect indicated to his pocket, where he kept one hand enclosed. After escaping with an undisclosed amount of cash, the two fled into a gray Lincoln Nautilus with covered license plates and tinted windows.
#7 Evansville, Indiana 2023
Evansville, Indiana.
- Date: 8/21/2023
- Bank: Indiana Members Union
- Tactic: Verbal Demand
- Picture: Surveillance footage
The male suspect was wearing a black ski mask, hat, and black hoodie with the hood pulled on, light-colored jeans, and black sneakers. The suspect was 5’9”, wearing sunglasses, and had a thin build. After his successful robbery, the suspect got away in a silver Nissan. The man suggested he was armed, but did not pull out a weapon, and no one was hurt.
#8 Rocky Mount, North Carolina 2023
Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
- Bank: PNC Bank
- Date: 8/23/2023
- Tactic: Verbal Demand
- Picture: No
The suspect, Montrell Pitt, held up a PNC Bank with an “edged weapon,” while verbally demanding money. After Pitt left the bank, he escaped in a stolen Toyota Tacoma. He then abandoned the truck several miles away and was picked up by a woman with five children in her vehicle. The woman was found, charged with five accounts of child endangerment, conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon, and accessory after the fact with a $1 million bond. Pitt, who is 28 years old, is still at large. The children were not hurt in the robbery.
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