Security Spotlight: Staff security tips, rewarding capture, training reminders, and more!

Welcome to the August Issue of the Security Spotlight

Barry Thompson's Monthly Security Tip

Be Aware of Your Surroundings
This is a good time to emphasize the greatest personal security tip for your bank staff: Always be aware of your surroundings! When you arrive at work, avoid parking near bushes, dumpsters, or dark areas. Take a look at the path to the office and assess any possible dangers before leaving your car. If you are the first person to arrive and are uncomfortable with what you see, wait in the car and call the police. If you are not the first to arrive, but notice something amiss, stay in your car and call the office to make sure everything is all right. If no one answers, call the police.

At the end of the day, try to leave in groups. Have your keys out and ready before you leave the building so that you can enter your car quickly. Take note of any other vehicles parked near you and look for any possible hiding places. Sometimes, the best security is simply paying attention and trusting your intuition.

Most Wanted: Captured!

Tip paid off...A 27-year-old former Army sniper who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and moved to San Diego following his honorable discharge, found employment engraving guns...and moonlighting as a serial bank robber. William Conn Robertson II, dubbed the Hipster Bandit because of his trendy clothing and youthful appearance, robbed or attempted to rob ten supermarket banks during his yearlong robbery spree in San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties in California. Robertson began his spree of heists in La Mesa last July. In some cases, he was seen strolling around grocery stores prior to robbing the branches. In one case, he fled in a blue SUV, and in another he was seen making his getaway on a black motorcycle. Even though he served in the military as an infantryman and sniper, he never displayed a weapon, but simply handed the tellers a note that read “this is a robbery” and asked for specific denominations in cash. Following his most recent heist at a Wells Fargo Bank branch in Mission Viejo on July 2nd, the FBI announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. The following day, San Diego County Crime Stoppers received an anonymous tip identifying Robertson as the perpetrator. The FBI staked out Robertson's apartment and apprehended him when he showed up there on a black Harley-Davidson motorcycle without license plates on it. Robertson's post-military career choice puts this honorable hero where there is no honor...among thieves.

Check our Bank Robbery page for photos and information on the latest unknown bank bandits, many of them with sunglasses, hats or other head and facial coverings disguising their identity. 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.

Hot Topics from the Bankers Forums

Discussions in BankersOnline's public Security forum last month included one banker wondering about bank demographics and staff dedicated to combatting deposit fraud. If you missed that or previous threads about forgeries, armored car services or kidnappings, you can still review those discussions, and more here.

You'll find active discussions on more sensitive security topics in our "Private Security Forum," where bankers discuss issues out of public view. There's also a private forum that invites participation by bankers, regulators and members of law enforcement.

The private forums are the place for security officers to discuss topics like sample reports to the board on Security and counterfeit bill pay checks. If you're a registered user of BOL's Discussion Forums, but don't see the Private - Financial Institution Personnel Only forums near the top of the Forums list, use your bank email address to send an access request to brenda@bankersonline.com. Once your request is approved, you can access the Private Security forum here.

Please note: Our Private Forums do not include access to Bankers Hotline, or Compliance Action, which are premium content areas requiring paid subscriptions.

CrimeDex

CrimeDex alerts heat up for the summer

BOL CrimeDex activity in our inbox last month was hot and heavy, just like the weather. Early in the month, the Kroger Company broadcast an alert that counterfeit Kroger checks were being circulated as part of an Internet scheme that had spread across more than twenty states. A black Lincoln Navigator with no plates was featured in an Escondido, CA, alert announcing the arrest of three individuals who were in the midst of affixing skimmer devices to a gas pump in that city. The Escondido police were seeking contacts from CrimeDex subscribers with similar incidents. Montgomery County (MD) police issued an alert looking for help identifying a female suspect using stolen identities to establish store credit accounts in the mid-Atlantic area.

A cloned debit card was featured in an alert posted by Hendersonville, NC, police. A Fayetteville resident discovered $500 had been withdrawn from his account at a Hendersonville ATM using a counterfeit (cloned) card. The alert included surveillance images of the thief, whom the police are trying to identify. And in yet another counterfeit check alert, the College of DuPage (Glen Ellyn, IL) police shared information concerning 60 counterfeit checks purporting to have been issued by the college, totaling nearly $50,000.

It's already a long, hot, CrimeDex summer.

Get all the details at CrimeDex . The CrimeDex service is free to all financial institutions that are registered users of BankersOnline. If you have access to our private forums, read the "CrimeDex Service FREE" notice in the second thread of the "Private - FI Personnel Only" forum.

Facebook Blog

Throughout the month, we share news-related incidents on Facebook that can be informative examples for training employees on security issues and more. We appreciate the "Likes" and encourage you to share our page with your fellow Security Officers and bankers, and ask them to "Like" us so they too can stay updated on the latest news.

There was plenty of news to share in July. In case you missed it, you can still check out the following posts:

• On July 6th, we posted a link to information you can pass along to your customers to help them combat identity theft.
• Also on July 6th is a post with a reminder that first aid skills should be a part of security training.
• And, yet a third post on that same day is about a customer who attacked a branch manager because she couldn't get a check cashed - another reminder to incorporate first aid into staff training.
• A bank heist posted on July 12th shows how a mantrap was used to thwart a robbery. In this case, a police car was damaged in the getaway, but that's better than a bank employee or customer being hurt.
• Another story posted on the 12th might make you add "password security and sharing" to your training agenda.
• And a third post on that day is a story about a shootout between a robber and armored car guards. Consider what would happen if this occurred in your parking lot.
• Who considers being fearful when a teenager is in the bank? Our July 15th post about two teenagers who rob a bank may change that thought, and sadly isn't the only story like it this month.
• Discover what happened in the July 19th post when one guy robbed three TD banks in two days.
• Do your customers think about vendor due diligence when it comes to armored car services, or just take the cheapest bid they can get? Our July 20th post is about an armored car robbery and the ensuing chase.
• Read about how DNA left on a hamburger helped catch a bank robber in our July 22nd post.
• Another story posted on the 22nd has "teller re-training" written all over it.
• How does an internal theft go on for five years? It shouldn't. Check out the July 25th post and see if it could happen in your bank.
• A second story shared on the 25th is about a robber in wolf's clothing – or at least in a wolf mask. What could make this even more dangerous? We have one idea.
• Remember the story we shared last April that sounded like the plot of a Hollywood movie when holes were cut in the roofs of banks that were robbed? We posted on July 27th the details of the bandits' recent arrest, with the same Hollywood-style ending.
• Also on the 27th we shared a bizarre story about a woman who robbed a bank and chased a customer in the lobby with a butcher's knife.
• And we closed the month with a July 30th story about three teenagers who robbed a bank. Good training likely contributed to the gathering of effective descriptions, and quick access to the video gave police the advantage of issuing a BOLO to surrounding regions.

Read about these and other informative topics on our BOL Facebook page. Be sure to "Like" the articles so we can continue to post more articles of interest to you!