Robberies at Supermarket ‘Mini-Banks’ on the Rise

While robberies at traditional banks are steadily falling, authorities report a crime surge at “mini-banks” that are popping up inside supermarkets throughout Southern California.

Law enforcement experts said many of the banks are easy targets because they lack the security of larger branches and because the bustling supermarket atmosphere allows robbers to “case” the area without raising suspicion.

Robberies at supermarket banks in the region jumped from 31 in 1997 to 127 last year, many of them attributed to a handful of specialist crime rings, according to the FBI.

“It’s become quite a problem,” said Bill Rehder, who coordinates the FBI’s bank robbery cases in much of Southern California. Criminals “understand that since supermarkets are opening these new branches, each one is a new target.”

Some of the increase is, of course, linked to the growing number of mini-banks in markets. The number of such banks has doubled in California over the last three years, to about 1,000.

But federal officials said such heists also are becoming more violent, with bands of gunmen committing “takeover” robberies as horrified customers look on.

One band, dubbed “shop and rob” criminals, is suspected of pulling off 87 heists at supermarket banks since April 1998, Rehder said.

On Thursday, a takeover robbery at a Buena Park Lucky store’s Bank of America branch led to an assault on an employee and a wild police chase and shooting. It was the third robbery at the market in a month and left customers and employees shaken.

The trend has prompted several big firms, such as Wells Fargo Bank, to tighten security at their supermarket branches.

But in doing so, banks face the possibility of undermining the popularity of the mini-branches. With the advent of online banking and the spread of automated teller machines, banks have used supermarket branches to attract customers who long for the days when banking was more personal and who are seeking a convenient place to bank.

But adding security guards and installing floor-to-ceiling “bandit barriers” could destroy the consumer-friendly atmosphere of supermarkets that banks have used to their advantage, said John Stafford, a spokesman for the California Bankers Assn.

“They are literally a barrier between a bank and its customers,” Stafford said of bandit barriers. “They are very effective, but they certainly impose a remoteness.”

Still, Roger Pida, Wells Fargo head of security for the Los Angeles region, says, “That is the initial complaint that we get from people who first come into contact with bandit barriers. How impersonal! But they’re not. You soon forget that they’re there.”

Pida has overseen the installation of bandit barriers at half a dozen in-market Wells Fargo branches. Some banks have also added video cameras, and some say they have reduced the amount of cash they keep.

The measures have already had an effect, Pida said. Wells Fargo branches in supermarkets were robbed 40 times in Pida’s area last year. This year, there have been just four such robberies, he said.

The mini-banks began springing up in supermarkets in the early 1990s as financial institutions looked for ways to better connect with customers.

During this period, banks significantly increased security at traditional branches, adding sophisticated metal detectors, partitions, video equipment and guards. The FBI attributes a 75% drop in bank robberies between 1992 and 1998 in part to these improvements.

Authorities said that as criminals found it more risky to rob regular branches, they set their sights on easier targets: the supermarket banks, which lacked many of the security measures.