Drug Addicts Blamed for Rise in Bank Holdups : Crime: Nine of 10 robbers are trying to support their narcotics habits, authorities say. The number of heists in Orange County has nearly doubled in the past year.

They call him The Mummy.

It is an appropriate moniker for the convicted thief who taped Band-Aids across his face to conceal his identity during a yearlong spree of 40 bank robberies throughout the Southland.

Jaime Reyes Torres, arrested by FBI agents March 27 during a holdup at a Wells Fargo bank, also had the look of a mummy--that all-too-familiar face of a strung-out heroin addict. His bloodshot eyes were sunk deep into his skull, his cheeks were hollow and his mouth was half agape.

“His veins were so collapsed that he couldn’t shoot in his arms anymore,” said James M. Donckels, special FBI agent for Orange County. “It was awful.”

The gaunt-faced Mummy represents a new type of bank robber: drug-addicted crooks who are driven by their habit, Donckels said.

Nine of 10 bank robbers are addicts, he said, and they are largely responsible for the worst year ever in Orange County for bank robberies. In the year that ended Sept. 30, there were 368 bank robberies, almost double the number a year earlier. Already through October, 38 bank robberies were reported in the county--more than one a day.

As FBI agents in the Southland grapple with the unprecedented rise in the number of bank robberies, they are also faced with a grim element in the profile of the new bank robber of the ‘90s.

Bank robberies used to be done mostly by “professionals,” gun-toting men--usually loners--who would methodically stake out their targets and move from state to state to stay one step ahead of the law.

The most frightening aspect of the new trend, officials say, is that drug addicts are usually more violent and aggressive than their “professional” counterparts.

“They are usually faster and more gutsy,” Donckels said, “while the more professional robber will plan and take his time.”

Banks are also vastly more lucrative than convenience stores or gas stations for criminals desperate for drug money, law enforcement officials say. Bank tellers are usually instructed to comply with robbers’ demands, even if no weapon is displayed.

“The robbers know this,” Donckels said. For drug addicts, there are few other criminal enterprises that will support a $1,000-a-day habit.

The recession does not appear to be responsible for the increase in bank robberies. In fact, Donckels said statistics have traditionally shown that crime tends to decrease or stabilize during financial hard times.

What is known and offers the best explanation for the increase, FBI officials said, is that drug use seems to be a growing trend among some segments of the population.

Law enforcement officials worry about the rise in the number of drug addicts resorting to bank heists because they are prone to make more mistakes and to be more clumsy than the “professionals,” Donckels said.

That sometimes proves fatal, as in the case of 55-year-old Samuel Borunda, who had resorted to bank robberies to feed a growing drug habit. He committed his last holdups at the Fidelity Federal Savings Bank in Stanton.

After hurriedly stuffing handfuls of bills into a satchel, he turned from the teller window and began to trot out of the bank. As he walked away, he glanced back and noticed a stray bill lying crumpled on the floor near the teller’s window.

He quickly retrieved the bill, a move that gave a bank security guard time to position himself for a confrontation. Seeing the guard, Borunda pulled a pistol out of his bag and pointed it at him. Seconds later, Borunda was dead with a bullet wound in his chest. He never got off a shot.

FBI agents, with help from informants, evidence left at the scene, or goof-ups made by nervous robbers, say they solve about 85% of all bank robberies, though some robbers take years to track down.

In the FBI’s Santa Ana office, a cramped room holds file cabinets stuffed with photographs and ledgers that track the dubious and sometimes hair-raising careers of bank robbers, many of them dressed in outlandish or ghoulish costumes or in dirty street clothes.

The hundreds of demand notes collected in a thick binder are rife with grammatical and spelling errors. One robber misspelled--and crossed out--the word “stickup” twice before he finally got it right on the third try.