Police Arrest ‘Passbook Bandit’ Suspect

A man suspected of being the “passbook bandit” who robbed 23 area banks this summer was arrested Monday by the FBI and San Diego police after he allegedly robbed another bank earlier in the day.

Benjamin Christopher Mejia, 39, was being held in the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in connection with the robbery spree that began Aug. 7, officials said.

Mejia has been charged with the Sept. 4 robbery of a Union Bank branch in National City and is a “very prime suspect” in the other robberies, said Joseph C. Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI office in San Diego.

After Mejia’s photograph appeared in a local paper, the FBI and police received tips from the public that led them to target Mejia as a suspect in early September, said FBI Agent Jack Kelly, coordinator of the bureau’s bank robbery squad.

A federal warrant was issued Sept. 18 for Mejia’s arrest, but authorities did not track him down until 11:30 a.m. Monday, about an hour after the Great American Bank at 5565 Lake Murray Blvd. in San Diego was robbed of an undetermined amount of cash, Johnson said.

Mejia, a Phoenix, Ariz., native who was living as a transient in San Diego, was not armed when he was arrested as he drove near 28th and Market streets, Johnson said. He has no convictions for bank robbery, Kelly said. He was to be arraigned Tuesday.

The passbook bandit, so called because his demand notes for money were always handed to tellers inside a bank passbook, stole nearly $30,000 from banks and savings and loan institutions, making him the third most prolific bank robber in San Diego in the past two decades, Kelly said. Greg Pearson, who was convicted of robbing 27 banks in 1987, and David Kelley, sent to federal prison for robbing 24 banks in 1988, hold the local record for most banks robbed, Kelly said.

The passbook bandit used notes to tell the tellers he was armed, and a handgun was seen three times during the robberies, Johnson said.

Johnson said the investigation is continuing.