FBI Says Robbery Suspect May Have Hit 40 Banks

A man who was arrested after a holdup last week may be responsible for nearly 40 bank heists in Southern California, FBI officials said Monday.

Authorities said the man could be responsible for a two-year series of violent robberies inside supermarkets that netted him and his getaway driver more than $1 million.

“I think any time you have a guy coming in at gunpoint and holding people hostage and threatening to kill people and taking over the entire bank and going in the vault, that’s about as bad as it gets,” FBI Special Agent William Kirkpatrick said.

Curtis Jeffery Mosley, 46, of San Bernardino was arrested on suspicion of armed bank robbery after a heist last Wednesday at a Bank of America branch inside an Albertsons supermarket on Imperial Highway in Yorba Linda.

Michael Jerome King, 42, of Highland, was arrested on identical charges. Authorities said they believed he was Mosley’s getaway driver.

During the Yorba Linda robbery, investigators alleged, Mosley, who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, black gloves and carrying a semiautomatic pistol, grabbed a customer by the neck and forced two tellers to take him to the vault, where he ordered them at gunpoint to open the safe.

According to an affidavit filed Monday in federal court in Santa Ana, he fled with more than $200,000 and jumped into a Ford Explorer, where King was waiting to drive him away.

A vehicle matching the description was spotted by Brea police on the Orange Freeway near Nutwood Avenue after an electronic tracking device on the money alerted police. The men were arrested after a high-speed chase.

Similar robberies were reported in Placentia, Tustin, Fullerton, Brea and Yorba Linda.

“These are daring people,” Brea Police Chief Michael Messina said.

According to criminal records, Mosley was arrested in San Bernardino in 1997 on suspicion of failing to provide for a minor child. A month later, he was arrested again on suspicion of receiving stolen property.