COUNTYWIDE : Tip Leads to Arrest of Suspect in 4 Bank Robberies

Police have arrested a suspected bank robber after an anonymous tip that the man was staying at a Port Hueneme motel.

The tip resulted from a photo of a robber taken by a bank surveillance camera and published late last week in local newspapers.

Gerardo Morales Garcia, 34, of Oxnard was arrested Sunday morning as he checked out of the Moonlight Motel on Pleasant Valley Road, Port Hueneme Police Sgt. Fernando Estrella said.

Garcia is suspected of robbing three banks in Port Hueneme and Oxnard on four occasions since he moved to Oxnard in May, Estrella said.

Garcia, on parole from state prison for robbery, was being held in Ventura County Jail on suspicion of violating parole. Gary Auer, agent in charge of the FBI’s Ventura County office, said he expects the suspect to be charged with four counts of bank robbery.

A photo of a man whom police believe is Garcia and shown fleeing a Port Hueneme bank ran in The Times Friday morning, two days after Garcia is suspected of robbing the Household Bank at 2671 Ventura Road for the second time.

By Friday evening, a tipster had identified the man, Estrella said. The citizen “felt somebody was going to get hurt because of this person, and didn’t want that to happen,” the sergeant said.

On Sunday morning, after another tip that Garcia had entered his motel room, police arrested him without incident, Estrella said.

Police agencies and the FBI have solved 46 of the 60 bank robberies in the county this year.