Bank Heists in County Drop 50% in 1994, FBI Reports : Crime: The year’s 24 robberies mark the lowest number since comparison of such statistics began in 1986. Fewer local residents are believed involved.

Bank robberies in Ventura County dropped sharply in 1994, with robbers raiding the till only half as often as they did the previous year, the FBI reported Wednesday.

Robbers held up 24 banks around Ventura County this year--the lowest number since the FBI began comparing bank robbery statistics in 1986, FBI Agent Gary Auer said.

With only two dozen robberies in 1994, Auer said, Ventura County banks were considerably quieter than in 1993, when 48 were robbed, and 1992, which had more than twice that number of stickups--97.

Extensive news coverage, vigilant tipsters, good investigators and tough punishment have dissuaded Ventura County residents from robbing banks as often as they once did, said Auer, who supervises the FBI’s Ventura County office.

Ventura County residents committed most of the robberies that occurred in 1993 and 1992, Auer said. But the number dropped dramatically after the FBI and local police agencies arrested dozens of suspects, including 30 in 1992 alone, nearly all of whom lived in the Oxnard area, he said.

And bank robbers are receiving longer prison terms than in the past, averaging about five years for a single count, Auer said.

“Many of these arrested in 1992 and 1993 got heavy sentences,” he said. “The word got out, and we think this caused a major drop in the number of people from the Oxnard-Ventura area committing bank robberies.”

Individuals and the news media have helped the FBI capture suspects, he said. One such man was Ronald Rene Bustamante, suspected of robbing three Ventura County banks in October and November, Auer said.

After local newspapers published bank surveillance photos of robbery suspects last month, telephone tips led agents to obtain a federal arrest warrant for Bustamante on Nov. 22.

When police in San Diego arrested Bustamante on Dec. 22 on unrelated charges of attempted burglary, he was held on the federal bank robbery warrant and appeared Tuesday before a federal magistrate in San Diego, Auer said.

So far, only half of 1994’s bank robberies in Ventura County have been solved, which is well below the average 77.8% arrest rate in robberies over the past nine years, he said.

But Auer pointed out that some robberies are solved after the year in which they occurred, and he expects that 1995 arrests in 1994 cases will bring the arrest rate into line with previous years.

“Our solution rate doesn’t finish on Dec. 31,” he said. “We continue looking into robberies. We expect to solve more this year.”

Some busy robbers are still at large.

The FBI dubbed one of the busiest the “Typed Note Bandit.”

Agents believe that the man robbed the CalFed Bank on Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks on May 2 and First Interstate Bank on the same street Aug. 8--as well as 20 other banks in the Los Angeles area since August, 1993--using only typewritten notes.

The notes used in the two Ventura County holdups generally say the same thing, Auer said. “They direct the teller to stay calm and follow directions, and they demand money.”

The FBI will not disclose the amount of money taken in each of the robberies, but Auer said the median haul was about $2,000.

Then there is “Elmer Fudd,” whom FBI agents nicknamed for the bulbous nose--apparently fake--that he wears during his robberies.

The FBI suspects that Fudd used a note to hold up the Wells Fargo Bank on Arneill Road in Camarillo on Christmas Eve, 1993, then went on to rob four more banks in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in January and February, Auer said.

And four young men are still at large after taking over an American Savings Bank branch in Oxnard on Jan. 5 at gunpoint, cleaning out the money drawers and part of the safe and even robbing bank patrons, Auer said.

Agents believe that the foursome came from Los Angeles County, but they have not been able to link the robbers to any other holdups in Ventura or Los Angeles counties, he said.

The remaining Ventura County robberies all appear to be unconnected, the work of individual bandits who held up one bank apiece in Ventura County and never repeated the crime locally, Auer said.

Throughout 1994, some interesting patterns have emerged: The most-robbed institution in 1994--as in 1993--was Bank of America, which had nine robberies largely because it has more than two dozen branches in the county, Auer said. The next highest rate was at Wells Fargo branches, which were robbed four times.

Bank of America suffered a similar robbery rate in 1993, with 15 robberies compared with no more than six at other institutions in Ventura County.

The most popular days of the week to rob banks have changed--from Tuesday and Friday in 1993 to Wednesday in 1994, FBI statistics show.

“Our old tradition of the ‘Friday night bank robbery’ seems to have disappeared in Ventura County,” Auer said, noting that Friday robberies declined from 23 in 1992 to 14 in 1993 and two this year--only one of which was committed after noon on a Friday. Such heists were often committed by people who wanted money to buy drugs for the weekend, he said.

And there has been a marked decline in robberies of east Ventura County banks this year after a sharp increase last year.

Bank heists had increased in 1993 in the affluent east county, with more gang members from Los Angeles crossing the county line to commit holdups, the FBI said at the time.

But robberies of Conejo Valley banks dropped from 16 in 1993 to five in 1994, and Simi Valley robberies were halved, from six last year to three this year, the FBI report said.

Oxnard and Ventura led the county, with seven and six robberies, respectively. Camarillo, Fillmore and Port Hueneme had one each.

Indeed, the pace of robberies countywide grew more sluggish as the year wore on, with fully one-third occurring in January and February.

And, Auer noted, robbers appear to be “getting to work earlier” this year. Fourteen of 1994’s holdups occurred before 1 p.m., while in the past, robbers hit their targets more frequently in the afternoon, he said.