Store Bank Hit Twice in a Week

An “in-store” bank was robbed Thursday afternoon for the second time in less than a week--this time by a serial bank robber dubbed the “Three-B Bandit,” an FBI agent said.

The “Three-B Bandit” is responsible for at least 20 other Southern California bank robberies since May, FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley said. He is not, however, part of a ring of bank robbers called the “Shop-and-Rob Bandits,” who staged an afternoon heist Friday at the same Washington Mutual Bank counter.

The bank counter is situated inside the Vons supermarket at 24160 Lyons Ave.

The robbery Thursday occurred at 12:44 p.m.--almost the same time as last Friday’s heist--when a man wearing a golf cap and green canvas tennis shoes walked up to the counter with a $5 bill. He asked for change in quarters and presented a handwritten note, Bosley said.

“The note said: ‘Give me all your money, bitch, in $100s and $50s’,” Bosley said. The robber did not appear to be armed.

The man walked out of the grocery store door with an undisclosed amount of money and the note, a federal agent said.

The suspect is described as a clean-shaven black man in his early 20s, wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, large mirror sunglasses, standing about 6 feet tall and weighing 170 pounds.

Federal authorities believe he has hit banks in the San Fernando Valley, South-Central, Riverside, Pasadena and other Southern California areas. Investigators have dubbed him the Three-B Bandit because he is known for slipping bank tellers notes scrawled with the command: “Big bills, bitch .”

The “Shop-and-Rob Bandits,” a group of three men and one woman, are believed to be responsible for more than 30 bank robberies in the area since April, many of them in the north county area, according to FBI officials.

In-store banking is a recent trend that has some security experts worried that grocery stores are too vulnerable to properly protect--but there is little data on the subject.

Bank robberies have been on a steady decline in Southern California since 1992, even as the percentage of violent heists has increased.