Suspect Sought in 6 Local Bank Robberies

The FBI is hunting for a 6-foot, 220-pound white man suspected of robbing six Ventura County banks and two Santa Barbara County banks in the past two months.

Special Agent Larry Dick said the robber is known as “the second-drawer bandit,” because he asks bank tellers to give him cash from their second drawer. “Bait” bills with recorded serial numbers or hiding exploding dye packs are usually kept in the tellers’ top drawer.

The FBI believes the second-drawer bandit has robbed Bank of America branches in Ventura on July 3 and 13, in Simi Valley on July 25 and Aug. 9, and in Oxnard on Aug. 8. The man is also suspected of robbing California Federal Bank in Camarillo on July 10, Dick said.

Dick said that with more than five years experience catching bank robbers, “you just know it” when one thief commits a string of crimes.

“I know what he does, what he says, what he looks like. . . . It’s him,” Dick said.

The robber has not injured anyone or displayed a weapon, but the note he passes to tellers says that he has a weapon, Dick said.

Separately, the FBI is searching for a 5-foot-9, 160-pound Latino man who robbed banks in Oxnard, Port Hueneme and Ojai in July, Dick said.

The FBI believes the two robbers have contributed to a total of 22 bank robberies so far this year in Ventura County. Dick said that pace is three or four ahead of last year, but below the all-time high of 1992.