The Fight Against Crime: Notes From the Front : FBI Agent Puts Nicknames With the Faces

Shortly after the C-Note Bandit, who steals only $100 bills, struck for the fourth time in Santa Barbara, the No Heroes Bandit, who passes out notes warning against anyone trying to be a hero, held up banks in Lakewood and Paramount.

Earlier, there were the I Spy robbers, the Miss America holdup queen, the Briefcase Gun Bandit, the Stinky Bandit and even the Acne Bandit.

Who comes up with these names anyway? Crazed headline writers who read too many Dick Tracy comic strips? Gangster buffs nostalgic for “Pretty Boy” Floyd and “Machine Gun” Kelly? No, the official source of colorful criminal nicknames, at least in a seven-county area around Los Angeles, is a 28-year FBI agent, Bill Rehder.

Rehder, who for 16 years has headed the bank robbery detail in the Los Angeles FBI office, says he usually spends several minutes each day dreaming up monikers for the incorrigibly felonious--”the toy department part of my job,” he calls it.

Why?

Because in Los Angeles, where a record 2,641 bank robberies were reported in 1992, it’s easier to keep track of serial bank robbers if they can be categorized by physical description and method of operations to keep them straight.

“It’s a memory device, a way for all of us who work robberies, local (authorities) and otherwise, to be on the same page,” Rehder said.

“Code names go back to Jack the Ripper. The press loves the names and we do too.”

So, over the years, Rehder has come up with names that fit memorable idiosyncrasies.

Although women account for only about 5% of all bank robberies, Rehder said, he has named every woman who made the leap to serial robber.

One of the most prolific was Large Marge, a foulmouthed woman who shouted obscenities as she robbed more than 30 banks. She was caught when a customer chased her at a Riverside mall.

Miss Piggy was a 5-foot-4, 200-pound-plus woman who made her getaways in a Volkswagen beetle.

Movies aside, women bank robbers usually aren’t very good looking, he said, so when a looker did appear, she was promptly dubbed the Miss America Bandit. Also rare are groups of female robbers, like the one named the Nasty Girls.

Racially mixed teams are also unusual. When one popped up a few weeks ago, Rehder took pride in steering clear of the salt and pepper cliche, naming them instead the I Spy bandits, after the 1960s black-white spy team portrayed on TV by Robert Culp and Bill Cosby.

A white man, African American and Latino were called the Rainbow Coalition.

On at least one occasion, albeit outside his jurisdiction in San Diego, a robber took offense.

The Acne Bandit tried to sue the FBI for giving him a derogatory handle.

“That didn’t get very far,” Rehder said.

The method runs up some notable successes. The alleged “Briefcase Gun Bandit” was accused of holding up 19 banks, 16 in the West Valley. He was so unnerved by the bureau’s description of him, and the appearance of a security camera photo in newspapers and on television, that he walked into the lobby of the FBI’s Westwood office building two weeks ago and raised his hands in surrender.

Bank robbers commonly continue using the same method of operation until they get caught, Rehder observed.

However, at least one memorable robber did try to vary his approach.

His first attempt was to present a demand note. The teller, feigning illness, walked away. In his next attempt, he got tougher, implying in his note that he had a gun. The teller called his bluff and he walked out empty-handed again.

On the third try, he actually used a gun, but a dye pack embedded in his loot exploded and he got nothing.

“Now he’s 0 for three,” Rehder laughed. “He did five robberies in all, but his take was so low that he just left the area. We called him the Still Learning Bandit.”