Camarillo Bank Is Robbed

A man believed to be a serial bank robber held up a Camarillo bank Wednesday morning, less than an hour after trying to rob a bank in Moorpark, authorities said.

The man robbed the Washington Mutual branch on the 5200 block of Mission Oaks Boulevard about 10:40 a.m. and escaped with an unspecified amount of cash, said Leane Blevins, a special agent in the FBI’s Ventura office. No escape vehicle was seen during the robbery, she said.

The same man tried to hold up a Washington Mutual branch on the 100 block of West Los Angeles Avenue in Moorpark less than an hour before the Camarillo robbery but gave up and fled, Blevins said. The robber, who did not claim to have a gun, gave the teller a demand note but left before he obtained any money, authorities said.

“The teller took a little more time than normal” getting the money, Blevins said, “and he apparently got spooked and went back out the door.”

Blevins described the robber as white, 6 feet to 6 feet 2 inches tall and in his mid-20s to early 30s. Blevins said the robber was wearing a long-sleeved shirt in both incidents Wednesday, and in the Camarillo case, wore a dark baseball cap with a white insignia.

The same man may have been responsible for two previous robberies, Blevins said. The first occurred June 16 at a Washington Mutual branch in Thousand Oaks, and the other occurred Friday at World Savings in Camarillo.