Did Bandits Bankroll Extremists?

For nearly two years, a gang of bank robbers roamed the Midwest, displaying a warped sense of humor, a fondness for pipe bombs and sympathy for the militia movement.

Depending on the season, they left their bombs in a Santa Claus hat or nestled in the grass of an Easter basket. In one holdup, they wore caps that said ATF, as in the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms--the agency involved in the fiery siege in Waco, Texas, in 1993. They rented a getaway car in the name of an FBI agent involved in the 1992 shootings at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

In letters and cartoons mailed to newspapers, they signed themselves the “Mid-Western Bank Bandits.”

Now, with two suspects in custody, federal officials believe that the robbers went by another name as well: the Aryan Republican Army.

Law enforcement officials and trackers of the extremist right say the gang’s story will open an important window on the financing of militant white supremacists. Authorities have suspected that some in the “patriot movement” are committing crimes to build up their treasuries, following the example of The Order, a right-wing revolutionary group that stole millions of dollars during the 1980s. If investigators are correct, the MidWestern Bank Bandits may provide the first solid evidence that large amounts of stolen money continue to flow to hate groups today.

The two suspects--Richard Lee Guthrie Jr. and Peter Kevin Langan--allegedly are dedicated to the overthrow of the government, the slaying of Jews and the deportation of blacks. Authorities believe that they and their partners have provided more than $500,000 in ill-gotten gains to notorious groups whose goals they share.

Special Agent Jim Nelson, who heads the FBI office in St. Louis, told The Times that the government is investigating whether at least $250,000 in unrecovered stolen bank money was funneled to the Aryan Nations and people who were affiliated with the Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord, a paramilitary group active in Arkansas during the 1980s. Both groups believe that the U.S. government has become tyrannical and must be confronted. Members of both groups also once belonged to The Order.

In addition to banks being robbed, stores apparently were swindled. Guthrie previously was arrested in West Virginia in 1991 in connection with a bogus-refund scam at K mart stores through which, he told sheriff’s deputies, he’d raised at least $250,000. At the time, he also told them that he sent the bulk of the money to the Aryan Nations. He disappeared after his father posted bond.

Half a million dollars “is a significant amount for a terrorist underground,” said Mike Reynolds, senior intelligence analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which compiles information about the ultra-right.

The bombing plot that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building, for example, has been estimated to have cost about $10,000--$3,000 for materials and $7,000 for other expenses.

At one point last year, the FBI was investigating whether the string of robberies attributed to the gang had bankrolled that deadly mission. No evidence emerged to link the two, Nelson said.

‘Larger Underground’

Still, Reynolds said, the Aryan Republican Army “appears at this point to be one cell of a larger underground.” Over the past decade, he said, Guthrie and Langan have traveled to the Aryan Nations headquarters in Hayden Lake, Idaho.

Langan has referred to himself as “Commander Pedro” in front of reporters and prosecutors. That name is used by a ski-masked man on a videotape recovered in Guthrie’s apartment here. On the tape, Commander Pedro declares: “We hope to finance every fighting revolutionary that comes along” to establish “an Aryan Nation.”

Guthrie had been under investigation by the Secret Service since at least 1991 for allegedly threatening then-President Bush. The Secret Service will not disclose details, but was concerned enough about locating Guthrie that it recruited Langan--his longtime friend--as an informant.

To that end, Langan was freed in 1993 from a jail in Georgia, where he had been charged with robbery of a Pizza Hut. His attorney in Columbus, Kevin Durkin, said Langan tried to cooperate with the Secret Service for awhile.

But Langan’s sister, Leslie Maloney, said he disappeared “two Thanksgivings ago” from his home in Cincinnati. She said federal agents searching for her brother have visited her numerous times.

She says she didn’t find out where Langan was until January, when he and Guthrie were arrested and showed up on the news.

Guthrie was taken into custody in Cincinnati on Jan. 15, this time for a solo bank robbery. He has not entered any pleas, but has been talking with investigators while being held in Covington, Ky., law enforcement sources said.

Langan was arrested here on Jan. 18 in a white van behind the $350-a-month flat Guthrie had recently rented under a false name. Agents, who later said Langan appeared to go for a gun, fired more than 45 shots in 45 seconds, including one bullet that grazed Langan’s scalp. He survived by diving into a plywood box in the back of the van.

He has pleaded not guilty to resisting arrest and is awaiting arraignment on an indictment charging him with two bank robberies in Ohio. He has been transferred to an undisclosed location, where he is being kept in isolation.

Langan denies robbing any banks and calls the shooting “a botched assassination attempt, not an effort to arrest somebody,” Durkin said. Langan is wondering, his lawyer added, if his political views and his earlier dealings with the Secret Service led to his current problems.

Complaints Pile Up

U.S. attorneys in 19 districts are weighing robbery and weapons charges against the pair. Indictments and complaints are flowing in from Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, Milwaukee and St. Louis. Thomas Lusby, who heads the FBI office in Omaha and is coordinating the Mid-Western Bank Bandits probe, alleges that from 1994 until late last year Guthrie and Langan were responsible for 18 robberies in seven states.

The Mid-Western Bandits often bought used cars with cash in the city where they planned to hit a bank, the FBI said. Pipe bombs--some active, some inert--often were left in banks and in the glove compartments of their getaway vehicles. No one was ever injured, but police pursuits were delayed.

They posed as construction workers and, on one day in December 1994, as Santa. “Ho, ho, ho, get down on the floor,” the Jolly Elf commanded customers at an Ohio bank. He left a bomb behind in his cap.

Maloney said agents told her the FBI is still seeking two more men.

Langan, 37, and Guthrie, 38, have been friends since at least 1979, Maloney said, when both lived in Wheaton, Md.

Langan was born in the Marianas Islands and also lived in Vietnam. His father was an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. At 16, Langan ran away from home. He was shot in the hand during a robbery in Florida.

Guthrie joined the Navy and apparently failed in an attempt to join the elite SEALS, who work with explosives, the FBI’s Nelson said. He was court-martialed and left the service in 1983, records show.

Guthrie and Langan traveled around the country, at least part of the time together. They lived in Georgia during the early ‘90s.

After Guthrie took off and the Secret Service enlisted Langan’s help, Langan moved in with his sister, helping her care for her disabled child and raising his own son from a failed marriage. Langan worked as a handyman.

“If he was going to Aryan Nations, I want to know when he had the time,” Maloney said. Her brother began living with a girlfriend, then vanished.

“I’d never say my brother isn’t a bigot. He’s very prejudiced,” Maloney said. “But I can’t see him robbing a bank.”

From April 1994 until the fall of 1995, Langan and Guthrie shared a house in Pittsburg, Kan., with a third man, the FBI’s Lusby said.

Weapons Cache

Last December, each was seen going in or out of the ground-floor apartment Guthrie rented in a slate-blue frame house here. Neighbors say they were among four or five men who cleaned out the trash in the yard. But no one appeared to live there regularly.

Landlord Harlyn Bennett says Guthrie paid the rent in cash. The source of the money is unclear. On financial affidavits, Guthrie wrote, without amplification, that he was self-employed, earning $24,000 annually, and Langan listed his occupation as “revolutionary” with a yearly salary of $12,000.

After their arrests, according to court documents, Langan’s van was found to contain a loaded and cocked .380 semiautomatic pistol, a pipe bomb, a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol, a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol in a hollowed-out Bible, a rifle and 3,000 rounds of ammunition.

In the house were 13 pipe bombs, seven handguns, yellow smoke grenades, police uniforms, FBI hats, wigs and the amateurish two-hour videotape called “the Aryan Republican Army presents: the armed struggle underground.”

The group’s goals, as explained on the tape by a man wearing a hard hat and Richard Nixon mask, are these: “Eliminate the government, from the federal government to the county seats. Exterminate Hymie. Repatriate all non-whites to their homes. Return the country to the Bible--these laws.”

Commander Pedro--who periodically drops his Spanish accent--brandishes what appears to be a machine gun, a machete, a grenade and other weapons. Jars of what look to be $20 and $50 bills are dramatically waved about.

There is a distinctly playful quality to parts of the tape, although the jokes cast a chill. Its creators spliced old footage together to make “Saturday Night Live”-style fake commercials for real brands of ammunition and body armor. The scenes depict a frightened populace in a battle against marauding federal agents.

Most of the tape, however, is taken up with lectures that appear to be aimed at those who might take up arms for the cause. Four disguised men, appearing one at a time, recommend books about right-wing ideology and exhort others to join the action.

“We introduced this tape in a humorous manner,” announces “Nixon.” “Make no mistake about it. We’re very serious about the revolution.”

They brag about a network of like-minded fighters around the nation and in Libya, Switzerland and other lands.

Says Commander Pedro: “We have to feed you. We have to arm you. . . . I’ve got to get a forklift just to handle all the stuff I got.”

Certainly Langan and Guthrie have managed to accumulate an amazing stockpile.

Langan rented a storage locker under the name Donald McClure in Shawnee, Kan. There, the FBI found more pipe bombs and two semiautomatic shoulder weapons, Clinton and Nixon masks, a Santa Claus suit, ATF and U.S. Marshals Service clothing and a book about a group of Iowa bank robbers.

Fateful Traffic Stop

Last month, a St. Louis County police officer stopped a weaving car on Interstate 44. The driver was Guthrie’s 72-year-old father, Richard L. Guthrie Sr., of Sterling, Va. He seemed “extremely nervous,” recalled Officer James Hillerbrand.

Hillerbrand asked to look in the trunk. He found a rocket launcher demonstrator designed for target practice, shotguns, rifles, Army fatigues, boots and notary seals for all 50 states. There was another video that court papers said contained footage of banks in Columbus and an armored car.

“The trunk,” the policeman said, “was just completely full.”

He said a pickup truck swerved around and came back on the wrong side of the road. The driver got out. It was Nicholas Guthrie, 32, also of Sterling. “That’s my Dad you’ve got there,” the young man said. “What’s going on?”

Nicholas Guthrie watched Hillerbrand sifting through the contents of the trunk and started to walk backward. “Officer,” he said, “I wouldn’t be touching anything in that trunk. My brother used to make bombs.”

“Have you heard of the Mid-Western Bank Bandits?” Nicholas Guthrie asked Hillerbrand.

“I said, ‘Yeah.’ ”

“That’s my brother.”

Richard Jr., it seems, had asked Nicholas to go to Joplin, Mo., to clean out a certain storage locker, Hillerbrand said, “before the FBI got there.”