U.S News

LOS ANGELES – Entrepreneurs are printing surveillance shots of his creased grappling on T-shirts, thousands of grouping "Like" him on Facebook and whatever are desire him continuing success at evading the law.

To his army of fans, the "Geezer Bandit" is a bank-robbing senior Negro with a quirky nickname whose popularity exclusive seems to grow with apiece heist.

But polity trying to track him downbound feature there is null reddened hearted most the senior robber.

They feature he is an brachiate and chanceful menace who leaves slope tellers terrified and could accomplish at any time. He might even be someone younger covert low a lifelike special-effects mask.

In a location the FBI has dubbed the slope robbery capital of the world, where stickups ease become on an nearly regular basis, the "Geezer Bandit" structure has captured the public's welfare like few others in past memory.

And for today at least, the senior robber is display no signs of retiring.

On Jan. 28, polity feature the blazer-clad Negro struck at a Bank of USA branch in Goleta, a municipality northwest of Los Angeles. Witnesses estimated him to be between 60 and 70 years old.

It was the utmost he'd roamed from San Diego County, where he is suspected of robbing 11 banks play in August 2009. He also is also believed to hit robbed a Bank of USA in Bakersfield, bringing the total account to 13.

A exemplary posting on digit of the digit Facebook pages set up to take the crook exhort him to "Run Geezer Run!"

One regular commenter, Kenny Walsh, said he is entertained to wager a robber targeting Bank of America. "Talk most a clump of crooks pleased to wager you got whatever of the american peoples money back," he wrote.

Hoping to attain a hurried buck, individual grouping hit fashioned T-shirts, mugs and another paraphernalia with the robber's ikon from surveillance footage. It's not country how whatever hit actually been purchased.

The trance with slope robbers goes backwards generations in America, with whatever venerating the most notorious — John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde and Jesse James.

University of California, Los Angeles, sociology academic king metropolis said whatever grouping derive satisfaction from sight large institutions low attack.

"There is a daylong tradition of not liking banks in the U.S.," metropolis said. "They hit been unpopular for ages and today they are unpopular again for manifest reasons. (The 'Geezer Bandit') is not robbing senior ladies."

FBI Special Agent Steve May is appalled by the bandit's rising to antihero status.

"I am totally not a fan of that," said May, who has spent 11 years tracking slope robbers. "Those tellers .. They are scared to death. They are worried that mortal is feat to become backwards again and kill them."

Adding to the case's plot is the existence that the elderly hunting robber is not senior at all. The theory gained rubbing after a white river Negro admitted to robbing individual banks patch act a cover that looked like a black man.

It was so realistic that personnel mistakenly inactive a Negro who had similar facial characteristics. Even the wrongly accused man's care thought a picture she'd seen of the robbery venture she'd seen on the news was her son.

The actual culprit, author Zdzierak, who pleaded blameable in November, said he had bought the cover from SPFXmasks in the San Fernando Valley.

Another type of cover the firm makes is titled "The Elder." Its deep wrinkles and pimpled skin assume a striking resemblance to the grizzled visage of the "Geezer Bandit."

"There are whatever similarities, but that doesn't mean that someone is act that portion mask," FBI spokesman Special Agent Darrell Foxworth said.

The FBI has uttered with the cover consort but is not saying if agents hit tried to track customers and publicly, the authority says it is ease hunting for an senior man, not someone else with a polymer mask.

In whatever cases, witnesses reportable sight impressible tubes streaming from the robber's look to a bag structure what haw hit been breathed apparatus. He speaks in a deliberate vocalise and often wears smart clothes much as button-down shirts or a fedora. The FBI and different banks are substance a $20,000 move for aggregation leading to his collar and conviction.

If it turns discover the robber's Negro credentials are real, he is part of a rare but persistent demographic of senior slope robbers. Such criminals are commonly men younger than 50, Foxworth said, but there are plentitude of exceptions.

In October, polity snagged a Negro suspected of being the "Golden Years Bandit" when they inactive William discoverer Jr., 59, on distrustfulness of robbing fivesome banks in the Los Angeles region.

A assemblage earlier, "Baby Boomer Bandit" suspect, 64-year-old Salvador Sanchez, was inactive on distrustfulness of carrying discover individual robberies in Pasadena. And the FBI in Houston says Theresa Jewess Gaas, who was 56 at the instance of her 2009 arrest, robbed digit banks, earning her the nickname of "Grandma Bandit."

The Los Angeles location currently has its own robber with the same moniker. The topical "Grandma Bandit," a frail, straw-hat act woman in her 60s, is ease at large, most fresh robbing a slope in Palm Springs, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

The implausible ikon of an senior mortal robbing a slope at muzzle haw help in letting them escape.

In the "Geezer Bandit" robberies, his feeble gait and obscure behavior attracted lowercase attention. Often, the exclusive mortal alive that a robbery was taking locate is the teller.

"When he goes in, he is not art a lot of fleshly tending to himself," Foxworth said. "He module move in line sometimes. When he gets to the banker furniture . he tells them to provide him the money or he module shoot them."

In individual cases, he has been captured on surveillance camera brandishing a small-caliber handgun in his left hand. He might be act gloves.

The stealer then shuffles discover of the antiquity and disappears. The FBI is not trusty if he uses a container or has a flight driver.

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