Security Spotlight: Helpful hotlines, cold robbery solved, fatal fraud, and more!

Welcome to the October Issue of the Security Spotlight

Barry Thompson's Monthly Security Tip

Fraud Hotlines
As we enter the fall season with the holidays just ahead, people may feel the need to increase income at the expense of the financial institution. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, a fraud hotline will reduce your losses from internal fraud by 50 percent. So if you experienced a fraud loss of $50,000, it could have been $100,000 without the fraud hotline. Staff will often report problems on the fraud hotline that they won't report in person. This tends to occur at odd hours during the night when a person can't sleep because they have the suspected incident on their mind.

Most Wanted: Captured!

Cold case heats up...A 13-year-old cold case involving a fatal bank robbery was solved with the help of a tipster...and the suspect. Richard Leon Wilbern, 56, was arrested in September after he voluntarily met with FBI agents in Rochester, New York. Wilbern had been on the FBI's radar since March, when a former co-worker tipped off the authorities to Wilbern's role in the August 2003 robbery of a credit union in Webster, NY. Wilbern (a former Xerox employee who had been fired) walked into the Xerox Federal Credit Union, located on the company's campus, wearing an FBI jacket, dark glasses and a U.S. Marshal's badge and identified himself as an FBI agent. After questioning employees about their security arrangements, he pulled two handguns from under his jacket and announced a robbery. A customer was fatally shot in the head after getting into a verbal altercation with Wilbern, and another customer was shot in the shoulder but survived. The suspect escaped with more than $10,000 and remained free for 13 years.

Following a March news conference during which the FBI released photos of the suspect and offered a $50,000 reward for help in solving the cold case, a former co-worker contacted the FBI and identified Wilbern. Ironically, as investigators were looking into the tip, the FBI received a call from Wilbern himself, who wanted to report that he was a victim of a suspected real estate scam. Agents met with him in July to discuss his complaint. During a second meeting, they had him sign paperwork and lick an envelope, which they used to get a DNA sample. Wilbern's DNA matched DNA that had been taken from an umbrella left behind at the bank robbery 13 years earlier.

Wilbern, who served prison time for a 1980 bank robbery, has been charged with bank robbery resulting in death and weapons counts. If convicted on the robbery and murder charges, he could face the federal death penalty.

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

There was one important discussion in BankersOnline's public Security forum last month but, due to the nature of the subject matter, it was moved to the Private forms. We exercise our discretion in doing that when the conversation is of a sensitive nature. There is another post in the public forum reminding Security Officers of the 22nd Annual SOW Workshop. Check it out and go to www.bolconferences.com/sow for more information. You can review this discussionm 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 chow you may have delivered to your security training for staff, changing all clear signals, your training, and an "All clear green card." 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

BOL CrimeDex alerts haven't cooled off

With September comes the start of cooler autumn temperatures and noticeably fewer hours of daylight. What hasn't cooled off is the pace with which BOL CrimeDex alerts have hit our inbox. More than 430 CrimeDex messages landed on our desktop last month (subscribers can filter the alerts they receive by region; we get them all). Here's just a sampling --

• A recent alert from a California credit union provided information on a fraudulent car loan ring operating in southern California. Ring members have been using unissued Social Security numbers to hide histories of charged-off loans and collection accounts.
• Lexington, NC police sent out a warning on counterfeit $50 bills used a local Walgreen's to buy a stored value card.
• A New Jersey county prosecutor's office reported a "bail money for grandchild" scam targeting elderly persons in Maryland, North Carolina and Ohio, and asked agencies with victims who have wired money to either of the identified suspects to make contact.
• A regional bank in the Northeast asked for help identifying two individuals suspected of opening accounts in the names of legitimate businesses with stolen checks payable to those businesses.
• Cambridge, MA police sought help identifying suspects in surveillance photos in connection with a "card cracking" investigation.
• Law enforcement from South Carolina requested assistance in identifying suspects believed to have installed a skimming device on a POS terminal inside an Anderson, SC gas station.

After years of watching CrimeDex alerts cross our desk, there is little left that surprises us. But an alert on September 28 from Stamford (CT) police had us shaking our head in disbelief: The department is investigating a "black money" or "wash wash" scam that took an elderly victim for about $450,000 in cash! The suspects are known to be Liberians in their late twenties or early thirties, and have been arrested before for this type of fraud. One of the suspects was apparently killed (for his share of the scam proceeds?) early in September.

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.

September was a slower month than usual, which is good, but we still had some news worth highlighting. In case you missed it, check out the following posts:

• We started the month off with a post on September 3 which highlights the importance of ATM inspections. During an ATM inspection, bank staff found a skimmer...and the story gets better.
• On that same day, we posted a news link about an ATM robbery that resulted in the apprehension of three bad guys. When the robbery is three blocks from the police station, police response is quick.
• You know a man’s relationship with his wife must be really tough if he robbed a bank so he could be arrested and get away from her. Read this unusual story in our September 9 post.
• Do you regularly test your alarms? Of course you do. You may also be involved in testing fire suppressions systems as well. Read the September 12 post about a routine test that took down a bank's servers for 10 hours, and even worse, knocked out communications that prevented the bank from explaining the problem to its customers.
• Is no disguise a disguise? Have you been asked "what's a bank robber look like?" He may look like the fine gentleman pictured in our September 13 post, handing the teller a note that says "All Money or Die."
• Our September 14 post involves a restaurant worker who brought a skimmer to work with her. Many bankers may not consider this a popular theft, but this McDonald's cashier pilfered over 100 card numbers.
• When robbing a bank, our September 20 post is an example of how the little things matter, like not running a red light during the getaway.
• And finally, on September 22, our shared post contradicts the demographics of your "typical" bank robber who prefers in-store branches. She – yes, a female – robbed five in one month.

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!