$750,000 Taken in Bank Heist, Authorities Say

Three robbers who forced a Newhall bank manager to hold what they said was a bomb got away Wednesday with about $750,000, sheriff’s deputies said--one of the largest bank robberies in Southern California in years.

The loot exceeds the $430,000 taken by robbers at a Tarzana bank in 1992, which at that time was the largest bank robbery in Los Angeles history. But it falls far short of a $3.3-million robbery in 1981 from the First National Bank in Tucson, the largest in U.S. history at the time.

Whether more recent robberies have exceeded those amounts is difficult to determine, because the FBI--which has jurisdiction over virtually all bank holdups--and bank executives are reluctant to reveal robbery amounts for fear of encouraging the crime.

After the robbers, described as three black men in their late 20s, escaped, sheriff’s deputies discovered the bag of “explosives” contained road flares and fireworks taped together to look like dynamite.

Wednesday’s robbery occurred at about 8:15 a.m., before the Bank of America branch in the 24700 block of Valley Street was scheduled to open, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Bock. He said an employee was inside the bank making security checks when the manager arrived and was confronted by one of the robbers, holding a plastic grocery bag.

“He approached the manager outside with what he claimed was a bag of explosives and ordered him into the bank,” Bock said.

Another employee who arrived a short time later was ordered into the bank at gunpoint by a second robber, said Sheriff’s Detective John Bomben. He said both robbers were wearing sunglasses and helmets, which he would not describe.

The two robbers ordered the two other employees to open the vault and empty money into two trash bags as the manager stood nearby with the supposed bomb, which the robbers threatened to detonate if they did not cooperate, authorities said. The employees were then led to the ATM machines, where the manager was forced to lie on the ground as the other employees removed the canisters containing money.

The robbers tied up the manager and one other employee and tried to lock them in the vault, but they couldn’t close the door because of security bars that popped out when the door was opened, Bock said. They put the bag of “explosives” in with them, “closed the door and said, ‘Don’t come out or we’ll blow up the device,’ ” he said.

The unbound employee untied her co-workers when she heard the men leave the bank, and the manager alerted sheriff’s deputies by setting off the bank’s alarm, Bock said. A third robber was apparently waiting in a getaway car, a white minivan, deputies said.

Learning that the bag was still in the vault, deputies shut down about one block of Valley Street and evacuated 18 residences in a senior citizen’s complex next to the bank.

After sheriff’s explosives experts brought the bag to the bank’s parking lot with a robot, they fired a shotgun into the bag to separate the items.

It was then discovered that the bag contained only road flares and fireworks taped together, Sgt. Heidi Clark said.

The exact sum of money taken was not available, but the amount was estimated to be about $750,000, the largest known bank robbery in Santa Clarita’s history, said Sheriff’s Lt. Barbara Persten.

FBI officials declined to discuss how large the robbery was, stating their policy is not to reveal the amount of money stolen during individual thefts.

“We’re not going to advertise how lucrative some bank robberies can be,” said John Hoos, an FBI spokesman.