COUNTYWIDE : Photos Taken in 2 Robberies Released

As part of its investigation into a rash of Ventura County bank robberies, the FBI on Saturday released photographs of two men as they held up local banks.

Larry Dick, a special agent for the Ventura FBI office, said the capture of the two men could solve as many as five other bank robberies. Dick said there have been 38 bank robberies in the county this year, contrasted with 25 at this time in 1994.

One man was photographed Nov. 3 by a security camera at a Bank of America branch on Saviers Road in Oxnard. He is believed to be responsible for two other recent Bank of America robberies, including one Oct. 16 on Arneill Road in Camarillo.

In both cases, the robber handed the teller a note and said he had a gun, though no weapon was seen. He then fled on foot.

The robber is described as a Latino man in his mid-20s, between 5 feet, 10 inches and 6 feet tall, and 170 pounds with short black hair. In both robberies, the man was said to be wearing a dark baseball cap.

The second man was photographed Nov. 1 while robbing a branch of California Federal Bank on Saviers Road in Oxnard, and he may have held up a Port Hueneme Bank of America branch on West Channel Islands Boulevard the day before, authorities said.

In the Oct. 31 robbery, the man slipped the teller a note scribbled on a deposit slip stating that he could shoot her, authorities said. The man in the Nov. 1 robbery told the teller he had a gun.

The man in the latter robbery is described as a clean-shaven Latino in his mid-30s, 5 feet, 10 inches tall, and 160 pounds with black hair.

The FBI is asking that anyone with information on these men call local police or the FBI office in Ventura at 642-3005.