‘Nasty Boys’ Suspect Held in Detroit : Crime: Youth is arrested while visiting relatives in Michigan. He is believed to be part of a Southern California bank robbery gang that has terrorized its victims.

Federal agents and Detroit police on Friday arrested a Los Angeles man suspected of being one of the “Nasty Boys,” a group of robbers who terrorized victims and held up more than two dozen Southern California banks during a recent four-month crime rampage.

Harold Joseph Walden II, 18, was reportedly visiting relatives in Detroit when he was arrested Friday afternoon.

“We had information that led us to the Detroit area,” said John L. Hoos, an FBI spokesman based in Los Angeles. “We were looking for him, and he showed up.”

Walden, thought to be a member of one of the Los Angeles Crips street gangs, was arrested on suspicion of armed robbery in connection with a November holdup of a Coast Federal Savings Bank in San Dimas. Two men held up that bank and made off with $23,706, according to an affidavit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court.

FBI officials say Walden is one of two to five members of the so-called Nasty Boys, a group thought to be responsible for 28 Los Angeles-area bank robberies in late 1991 and early 1992. After entering the banks, the robbers would threaten to kill customers and bank employees. They would sometimes fire shots in the air and fondle female bank employees.

If convicted, Walden could face 25 years in prison, as well as another 20 years for firing a gun during the robbery. Walden was in custody Friday night, and will reappear before a magistrate for a bail hearing Monday.

In the San Dimas holdup, two men entered the bank just after 11 a.m. They were approached by an assistant bank manager, who asked them whether they needed help. After first pretending to be interested in a credit application, one of the robbers pulled a gun.

According to the affidavit, the robber held the gun to the manager’s head and said: “Have you ever killed anyone before? This gun could blow a hole in you.”

The two robbers herded bank employees into a vault and forced the manager to open a bank safe. At one point, one of the robbers--identified from bank security camera photographs as Walden--held his gun next to the manager’s head and fired into the safe.

Walden is the second person to be arrested in connection with Nasty Boys crimes. Another suspect, Clarence Carlin Sanders, 20, was arrested by California Highway Patrol officers in January on an unrelated charge, and is being held in Ventura County Jail.

Hoos said the investigation is continuing, and that officials are trying to locate the Nasty Boy suspects still at large.