Security Spotlight: A seasonal warning, timely training lessons, and more!

Helpful Sources

High tech heist advice...

Gone are the days of dictionaries and maps and how-to books to help one achieve their goals. Now we have the Internet, a proverbial plethora of information and advice at the click of a mouse. When Sarah McLoud and Robert Owens contemplated robbing a bank, they went surfing for some guidance before sending McLoud into the Weymouth Bank in South Weymouth, MA, demanding money and instructing the teller not to include a dye pack. McLoud was quickly identified from bank security footage by narcotics officers who recognized her as the subject of an ongoing narcotics investigation. She was apprehended a few hours later along with Owens, who witnesses recounted seeing with McLoud prior to the robbery. When the pair was arrested at McLoud's home, police found clothing worn during the bank robbery, cash stolen during the theft...and a suspicious search history on the suspect's computer. In the browsing history were searches for "if you're going to rob a bank" and "what happens if you rob a bank." Whatever advice their search pulled up obviously left out "clear browsing data" as a helpful tip. McLoud and Owens were both charged with unarmed robbery and conspiracy to commit unarmed robbery. Further investigation led police to a third accomplice, Daniel Murphy, who drove the getaway car and was subsequently arrested. The Internet isn't going to be of much help getting the trio out of jail.

Heroic husband...

Marines are trained to defend their country at all costs. Firefighters have the courage to battle raging fires to save lives. So when John Weyrich saw a teller's life in danger at the hands of a thief, he didn't hesitate to act. Weyrich, a firefighter and former marine, was at the Capital One Bank in Waldorf, MD one morning to surprise his wife, a teller at the bank, with flowers for her birthday. While saying their goodbyes in the parking lot, Weyrich saw a man wearing a motorcycle helmet and wielding a knife exit the bank clutching the teller he had just robbed. When the robber released his hostage and fled on his motorcycle, Weyrich jumped in his truck and followed him. Calling his wife on her cell phone, Mrs. Weyrich was able to relay her husband's - and the bandit's - location to police. With this information, police set up roadblocks, and the pursuit ended when the fleeing suspect's car crashed into a tree. "I was in the Marine Corps, so I guess it just comes second nature," said Weyrich of his heroic actions. "When somebody hurts somebody, you tend to want to take care of it." While we don't recommend or condone heroism, in this case the good Samaritan kept his distance from the suspect and his efforts in tracking him led to a quick arrest and the recovery of the bank's money.

Check our Bank Robbery page for photos and information on the latest robbery suspects. There are 42 unknown bank bandits featured in our suspects gallery for October.

While some are brazen enough to wear no disguise, most bandits will don glasses or some type of head covering to deflect from their appearance. Enforcing a no hats, hoods and sunglasses policy can help reduce the number of bandits who target your bank. Purchase No Hat Cling signs for all of your branches from the Banker Store

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Kudos to Cops and Easy IDs

Probable Cause -

In late October, state police in New York stopped a black Chrysler 300 for speeding on I-90. When they approached the car, they could smell marijuana. In questioning the three occupants, their suspicions were raised when the trio's accounts of who they were and where they were going were inconsistent. Having probable cause, the state troopers conducted a thorough search of the car. They didn't find any illegal drugs, but they did find 115 fraudulent credit cards hidden in two drink containers with false bottoms. The three were charged with 115 counts of Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument. These state troopers get a big BOL salute.

A Dirty Dozen -

In Las Vegas, NV, the FBI arrested a dozen people, most of whom were southern California residents, who were all charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud. The FBI discovered the "dirty dozen" had been manufacturing and installing skimming devices on ATM card readers. Using miniature cameras to record the PIN numbers and then creating their own cards with the stolen data, the suspects withdrew cash from ATMs in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Francisco. Another salute to law enforcement on a job well done.

Loan App Gets Robber Nailed -

It's a crime to file a false application for credit with a bank, but you don't often hear about arrests being made for false loan applications. George "Ricky" Gaunt walked into a bank in Iowa and picked up a blank loan application. He used it to write a robbery note on in which he threatened the lives of bank employees if his instructions weren't followed. But he also filled in some of the fields on the application with correct and incorrect information (such as the city he lived in listed with a different state and some other variations of true details). Of course he left the note behind, which police were able to use along with the Internet, social media and investigative skills to piece together Gaunt's identity based on the helpful clues he supplied on the application.

This article provides some interesting details that work back from the application to eye witness accounts of the bicycle used for transportation, to a Walmart video of the bike being purchased and the car that picked up the person who was on a bike, all the way down to DNA evidence

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Who ya gonna call? -

When an emergency arises, who do you call for help? In Redwood City, CA, Gerard Myer called the police when his girlfriend had a seizure. They were at the Vagabond Inn and had no other address. The police were happy to come to their aid. When they responded to Myer's call, he looked familiar. A Wells Fargo branch robbed a week earlier showed a man wearing a wig and baseball cap on the bank's surveillance video. But the robber had stopped at a nearby store prior to the robbery to look at his reflection and adjust his wig. An observant store employee snapped a photo of the wigged man that was clear enough for police responding to Myer's call to recognize him as the man in the picture. Evidence linking him to the robbery was later found in the hotel room and Myer was arrested.

Hot Topics from the Bankers' Threads

In the publicly accessible threads one banker was looking for new ways to train the board about security. Remember last month there was a similar question regarding employees. If you have ideas, share. And if you want to know what others suggest, tune into the Security training for the BoD thread. Bankers are also trying to address the situation of concealed carry laws and open carry laws in various states. Security officers want to know how to best deal with those who want to bring firearms into the bank. Sometimes that means networking with peers to see what others have done.

Additional discussions on various topics, such as bank keys and who can serve as the Security Officer, can be found in the Public Security area. When commenting on these discussions, keep in mind this is an unprotected public forum and comments should be limited to generic content.

We also have a "private" security forum for discussion of more private, sensitive topics. That is where security officers were discussing Square Cash, police wanting your surveillance video, handling employees who were terminated, counterfeit money, an update on a robbery last year where the branch manager was kidnapped and had a bomb strapped to her (you'll want to read this!), and more.

To comment in Bankers' Threads you must be a registered user. You can register here. If using your bank email account, you will be given access to the private forums. The Private area is a group of forums under the heading "Private - Financial Institution Personnel Only." The Private forums do not include access to Bankers Hotline or Compliance Action, premium content areas that require paid subscriptions to those respective publications

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If you are already registered for the Threads, but don't yet have access to the private forums, using your bank email address send a request for access to eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%61%6e%64%79%7a%40%62%61%6e%6b%65%72%73%6f%6e%6c%69%6e%65%2e%63%6f%6d%22%3e%61%6e%64%79%7a%40%62%61%6e%6b%65%72%73%6f%6e%6c%69%6e%65%2e%63%6f%6d%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b')). Please verify that you do not yet have Private access. Once your registration request is approved, you can access the Private Security forum here.

BOL Crimedex

Crime runs hot even as temperatures fall

The number of BOL CrimeDex alerts have not slacked off at all with the onset of cooler temperatures and falling leaves. There continues to be a wealth of examples that Security Managers can use in their training, and lots of scams to be on the watch for. October started with an alert on a SMishing/Vishing scheme that hit customers of a Georgia bank. Customers received phone and text instructions to call a number to have their cards "unlocked." You know the next steps: The customers are asked to provide card number/PIN and CVV information "to reactivate" the cards, and almost immediately there is ATM counterfeit card activity in Europe and elsewhere. If ever there was a case for alerting your customers about this sort of scam, this is it! Suspects in another alert must believe there's money behind credit cards they stole from unlocked vehicles in Southern California golf course parking lots. They used the cards to buy gift cards at nearby chain stores. Our favorite alert of the month is one you might want to share with your commercial customers who accept plastic in their retail outlets. It seems that some merchants who used satellite dish uplinks to obtain card authorizations were experiencing communication failures and made offline credit/debit card sales. They later found that their satellite dishes had been shielded with aluminum foil to block the transaction requests. It might have been smarter to decline the sales and investigate the extended outage.

Each month's BOL CrimeDex alerts can provide your financial institution with fresh examples of crimes that can be used to bring reality to security training presentations.

CrimeDex is now FREE to registered members of the Bankers' Threads Private Security Forum! Get the details and subscribe now!

Facebook Blog

Throughout the month, we share news related incidents on our Facebook page that can be informative examples for training employees on security issues and more. A tragic news story we shared in October 21st highlights what can happen when a customer tries to stop a bank robbery. Obviously you can't train customers on what to do during a robbery, but you can train staff on robbery response and how to handle customers during a robbery. Fox Business has an informative article directed to bank customers on how to survive a bank robbery. The article includes information on bank robbery methods, when they are most likely to occur, what customers shouldn't do, and the safety of bank branches.

We've been busy on Facebook! If you haven't haven't visited us lately, you may have missed our posts on the braggart bandit who was arrested the day after he robbed a bank and boasted about it. His accomplice wasn't so smart either. There's also a post about a bank robber who took enough time admiring his bag of cash in the lobby to get arrested on his way out when police had arrived to greet him. Don't forget to check out the story about a young teenage boy in the UK who is going away for 40 months after his mom helped bust him for robbing a bank.

Read about these topics, a fatal drive-through robbery, and more on our Facebook page. Be sure to "like" the articles so we can continue to post more articles of interest to you!