Oh yeah, wait a minute Mr. Postman—are you even really a postman? The FBI says that a bank robber disguised as a UPS worker hit up a Queens bank yesterday. And this bank robber made sure not to mistakenly hand his gun to the cashier. more ›

Bank robberies are up in the city (the number of armed bank robberies went up 69 percent to 44 last year!), a fact apparently furthered by the recent release of a career criminal whom the FBI thinks is already back at it. Jack Mannino, dubbed the "Seven Second Bandit" when he was busted in 1999 for his lightning fast heists, was released from prison in July and is now wanted in relation to a bank robbery in Bensonhurst last week. more ›

An alert young cop actually caught a bank robber red handed yesterday in Brooklyn. 23-year-old officer Carlos Corporan was heading to work in Williamsburg from Bushwick when he noticed a man who fit the description of a suspect wanted for a bank robbery in Brooklyn Heights. Moving closer he got especially suspicious when he noticed the man's shirt was smoking. more ›

A bank robber was caught by police yesterday after he allegedly tried to hold up the same Manhattan bank for the third day in a row. “Maybe a handful of times I’ve heard of a guy come back a few weeks later. I’ve never heard of a guy come back two days in a row, let alone three,” said a law-enforcement source. Maybe he just wanted to ask for a job? more ›

And this is why sporting a "Hitler" mustache is never a good idea. Police busted serial bank robber Djamil Aziz in Greenwich Village on Saturday night after recognizing his "Hitler-like mustache" on a surveillance camera. "What really caught their eye was his mustache and his height. He's...tall, 6-foot-2, with a Hitler-like mustache," one source told the Post. more ›

Just because you're a bank robber doesn't mean you can't be polite. Harold Luken, who the Post describes as a "nebbishy knucklehead in a black yarmulke," walked into a Forest Hills Bank of America on Thursday, declaring "I am gonna rob the bank! I have a gun, but I'm gonna wait on line." Just try reading that in anything but the Jackie Mason voice. more ›

The "Holiday Bandit" has been busted, according to the FBI. The feds are reporting that a joint FBI/NYPD task force picked up 6"5' suspected bank robber Marat G. Mikhaylich without incident this morning around 9:30 a.m. in Queens after being tipped off that a stolen 2007 Camry which he used in a Edison, New Jersey, robbery yesterday was found on 91st Avenue. more ›

The 70-year-old bank robber who was shot in the leg by police while trying to rob a Chase bank the day after he was released from prison is going back to jail. John Daniel Stolarz, aka Johnny Shades, pleaded guilty to the top count of bank robbery for the botched robbery yesterday. He should have stuck to a criminal professional more suitable for an elderly man. more ›

The FBI is looking for Marat G. Mikhaylich, nicknamed the "Holiday Bandit," after he robbed his sixth New York bank yesterday. He held up the Capital One bank at 4612 14th Avenue in Brooklyn yesterday morning, demanding cash from two tellers before fleeing on foot. However, we were gravely disappointed to find that he seems to have got his nickname by robbing banks vaguely around the holiday season. Couldn't he have dressed like Santa or even a festive Darth Vader like a normal robber? more ›

A robber claiming to be an Iraq war veteran absconded with $3,000 after sliding a very poorly-written note to a teller at a Chase bank in Chelsea last Thursday. Teller Talla Talla said the crook showed him a gun, and gave him a note which read, "Unemploy IRAQ war vet I have a gun in my Pocket I want 2 stack $100 Bills No Die Pack or Dummie Pack Please I Don't want hurt any one one co worker." Who else read "I want 2 stack $100 bills" as just his fetish for piling dollars on top of each other? more ›

A 25-year-old teller at a TriBeCa Citibank finally figured out how to protect your savings from the hands of dastardly robbers. Make fun of them! On Monday evening, a potential robber walked up to her counter and said, "Excuse me Miss. This is a robbery. Give me all your large bills. Don't do anything stupid." Thinking it was a joke, she laughed in his face, and then quickly told her manager once she realized he wasn't kidding. But the embarrassment was just too much for the crook, who fled before he could get any cash. He should have dressed up as Darth Vader—nobody ever laughed at that guy. more ›

Edward Pemberton, AKA The Bouquet Bandit who made tabloid headlines after a string of bank robberies armed with nothing but foliage, has turned down a plea deal that would have landed him in prison for no fewer than seven years prison in return for a guilty plea to two of his bank robberies. His Legal Aid Society lawyer says the sentence is too high, in part because her client is so classy. "My client is accused of handing a teller some flowers and politely asking for money," lawyer Justine Luongo tells the Post. "Since his arrest, he has been nothing less than a gentleman—and that's what the DA's have said." Doesn't common courtesy count for anything anymore? more ›

Poor Edward Pemberton. After being busted for robbing a bank armed with a bouquet of flowers, the former Chelsea's Flower District employee now says he never wants to see another flower again. He told the Daily News, "They're the thing that did me in. ...They're bad memories now." But he also believes the plants that caused his downfall should prove that he's not really a bad guy. "The flowers show I'm polite...The flowers were 'Thank yous' to people who were giving me something that didn't belong to them, and didn't belong to me either." more ›

The troubled elder Skywalker who robbed a Long Island bank Thursday morning really was allied with the evil empire—just not in a galaxy far, far away. The robber allegedly threw a Yankees drawstring backpack at the teller and demanded that she fill it with money. Finally, stone cold proof! more ›

The Long Island bank robber who disguised himself as Darth Vader wasn't afraid to use force. Witnesses tell Newsday (paywall) that when Vader entered the Chase bank in Setauket, everyone thought it was just a gag. A muscular customer at the counter jokingly tried to put his arms around Vader, at which point the 6'2" former Jedi threw him to the ground, pointed the gun at him and said, "I'll shoot you in the face. This isn't a joke." And for the first time in history, a grown man in a Star Wars costume successfully stopped people from laughing at him. more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] The man who robbed a bank in Chelsea last Thursday morning armed with a bouquet of flowers is believed to have previously struck another bank in the neighborhood on July 8th. His weapon of choice on that occasion? A potted plant. But this time, he didn't even have the common courtesy to leave it behind for the teller, like he did with the flowers. more ›

Add this to your blogrolls! The FBI has developed a new website featuring surveillance photos of bank robbers. Dubbed "Bandit Tracker," the website features a database of images, crime narratives, and maps that authorities hope will generate valuable tips from visitors, according to the Post. Similar websites are up and running in Chicago, St. Louis and Texas, among other places, and in some cases, the technology used to establish the sites allows investigators to post images of the suspects within an hour after a robbery occurs. more ›

Former New York City transit officer Christian Torres, 22, was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in prison for his armed robbery of $113,000 from a Reading, PA bank last April. You may recall that Torres's arrest in Reading came a year after his two successful 2007 robberies at a Sovereign branch in the East Village; he persuaded an ex-girlfriend who worked at the bank help him with those jobs, which netted him about $100,000. His lawyer tells the AP, "I think the fact that they got away with it empowered them, it sort of led to the next one, and then the next one. It is a shame. He's a bright kid, and he seems like a nice kid." Torres has cooperated with Sovereign Bank officials since his arrest to help them improve security (like not hiring scheming employees?), and U.S. District Judge Thomas Golden sentenced Torres at the bottom of the sentencing range. But he still faces charges for the two East Village bank heists; his lawyer says he's waiting to see the evidence before deciding if he'll try plea-bargaining on those charges. more ›

Police have arrested a bank teller for helping an NYPD rookie pull off two robberies at the East Village bank last year. Christina Dasrath admitted to cops that she received a portion of the $118,000 taken. more ›

NYPD rookie Christian Torres has been charged in robbing an East Village Sovereign Bank branch twice. The law enforcement officer who held a second "job" as a felonious stickup man was initially arrested after robbing a Pennsylvania bank of $113,000. more ›

It's not unusual for police officers to make side money by moonlighting with second jobs. Christian Torres is a rookie cop, however, who took that practice to a whole new level--allegedly robbing banks when off duty. more ›