THOUSAND OAKS : S&L; Robbery Suspect Sought in 4 Others

Police and FBI agents are searching for a man in his early 30s who they say has robbed at least five financial institutions in the past month, including a Thousand Oaks savings and loan Tuesday afternoon.

A man approached a teller at the Home Savings branch office at 148 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd. about 12:30 p.m., said Gary Auer, supervising agent for the Ventura County FBI office.

Dressed in a white sweatshirt, blue jeans and a Dallas Cowboys cap, the suspect presented a note to the teller demanding money and escaped on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash, Auer said.

“Only one teller was robbed,” Auer said. “And the [robber] was last seen on foot heading eastbound on Thousand Oaks Boulevard away from the bank.”

No weapon was seen during the attack, investigators said.

Auer said photographs of the robber taken at the Home Savings branch Tuesday appear to match pictures snapped of robbers of four Ventura County banks within the past month.

Authorities described the robber as a clean-shaven Latino with a ruddy complexion. He has dark hair, brown eyes, weighs about 175 pounds and stands about 5 feet, 7 inches tall, Auer said.

“The manner in which he is committing the robberies is fairly routine, but the fact that he’s now robbed five banks doesn’t make him run of the mill,” Auer said.

Tuesday’s robbery was the 50th in Ventura County this year--about twice as many as last year, but about average the number of robberies a year over the past decade, Auer said.