Local News in Brief : 3 Robbers Sought in $600,000 Bank Theft

Authorities are looking for three thieves in the $600,000 robbery of a North Hollywood bank processing center, described by one detective as the largest bank robbery in recent city history.

The holdup occurred shortly before midnight last Friday, when two men wearing dark ski masks and armed with handguns entered a second-floor office of the Security Pacific Bank processing center, which is used to process and verify cash deposits from outlying branches, Los Angeles police said.

Five center employees were counting money, Detective Jim Grayson said, and the gunmen ordered them to get down on the floor. One of the robbers had a walkie-talkie, which he used to talk to a third individual stationed elsewhere while the pair put the cash into large bags and fled, Grayson said.

Police released information about the robbery this week in hopes of locating the robbers, the detective said.

Grayson said the amount of cash taken was “the largest that I know of, and I’ve been here 25 years.”

Investigators were still trying to figure out how the robbers entered the building and how they knew bank employees were counting a large amount of cash at that hour. “There was no sign of forced entry,” Grayson said.