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How to Rob a Bank
935 Plays17 days ago
In this episode, we speak to the pseudonymous F. X. Regan about the ins and outs of bank robberies.
The pseudonymous F.X. Regan was a street police officer in a major metropolitan police department, a SWAT team member, and is a retired FBI agent. After his 33 year career in law enforcement, he served as VP and COO for security at two large companies. In addition to writing full-time, he is a licensed private investigator. Regan is writing in three fiction series including the AREA 51: Project Series, The Detective Kiki Diaz Thriller series, and the CJ Hawk - FBI Thriller series. You can follow all of his work at www.fxregan.com.
If you like this show, help fund hosting fees by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EncyclopediaGeopolitica
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Transcript
Introduction to 'How to Get on a Watchlist'
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to How to Get on a Watchlist, the new podcast series from Encyclopedia Geopolitica. um In each episode, we'll sit down with leading experts to discuss dangerous activities. for From assassinations and airliner shootdowns through to kidnappings and coups, we'll examine each of these threats through the lenses of both the Dangerous Act to seeking to conduct these operations and the agencies around the world seeking to stop them. In the interest of operational security, certain tactical details will be omitted from these discussions.
00:00:34
Speaker
However, the cases and threats which we discuss here are very real.
Meet the Hosts: Louis A. Poussin and Colin Reed
00:01:01
Speaker
back correct nine one one the emergency I'm Louis A. Poussin, the founder and co-editor of Encyclopedia Geopolitica. I'm a researcher in the field of intelligence and espionage with a PhD in intelligence studies from Loughborough University. I'm an adjunct professor in intelligence at Science Pope Paris, and in my day job, I provide geopolitical analysis and security-focused intelligence to private sector corporations. My name is Colin Reed. I am a former US intelligence professional now working in the private sector to bring geopolitical insights and risk analysis to business leaders.
Guest Introduction: FX Reagan, Retired FBI Agent
00:01:36
Speaker
so In today's episode, we're talking about how to rob a bank. and Joining us for this is FX Reagan. The pseudonymous FX Reagan was a street police officer in a major metropolitan police department, a SWAT team member, and is a retired FBI agent. After his 33-year career in law enforcement, he served as VP and COO for security at two large companies.
00:01:56
Speaker
In addition to writing full-time, he's a licensed private investigator. Reagan's writing in three fiction series, including the Area 51 project series, the Detective Kiki Diaz thriller series, and the CJ Hawke FBI thriller series. You can follow all of his work at fxregan.com, and we'll put links to those in the show
Why are most bank robberies unsophisticated?
00:02:14
Speaker
notes. So, FX, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Really looking forward to this one.
00:02:19
Speaker
So that's a really interesting background and and especially to talk about the subject today, you know, how how bank robberies happen. So the first question we always like to ask our guests is how did you get into a line of work like that?
00:02:32
Speaker
Very unusually, I don't tell everybody. I didn't used to tell everybody, especially when I was in law enforcement. But I started in college as a music major, which didn't really translate into law enforcement. And what really got me was keyboard. I couldn't master the keyboard. So I transitioned to political science, criminal justice. And from there, I just had an interest in police work.
00:02:56
Speaker
It's super interesting. I think there's some of the creative still in you with your writing projects now. So let's kick this off. I want to ask you, you know when we think of a bank robbery, we're imagining sort of the movies, we're imagining these gangs of robbers sort of wearing the president masks and emptying vaults. Is that the case? Is that how a typical bank robbery looks or or what is a typical bank robbery?
Inside Jobs: The Mechanics of Sophisticated Robberies
00:03:18
Speaker
Unfortunately, that's not the way most of them look. But there are some. i mean We can talk about the more esoteric one because those are the fun ones and the ones you see in movies and TVs and all. But you know really, most of them are single, lone individuals, very unsophisticated. Many of them are not even armed, even if they claim they're armed. I'd say maybe even half.
00:03:40
Speaker
who walk in and you know write a a note to the teller that says, this is a robbery, I have a gun, give me all the money. But half of them really don't even have a gun. But you know the teller has to go along with that. So for the most part, I'd say 75% to 80% are not sophisticated lone individuals, very often drug-related. So what about kind of reconnaissance and and scoping out a target for these kind of gangs? you know Let's talk about those more sophisticated gangs. I'm assuming those those kind of lower stakes drug-related ones, they just go for what's closest, what they see at the time. but
00:04:16
Speaker
If we're thinking around a more sophisticated robbery, do they you know are they doing reconnaissance on the bank beforehand? how How does that kind of stuff work? How do they choose a target? My experience would be that most of them that are gang related or that have more than one individual or even the least, they're most sophisticated you can come up with.
00:04:37
Speaker
are inside jobs. They're people that know something about the bank. They have a friend, a girlfriend, a spouse, a girlfriend usually that works in the bank. ah They used to work in a bank. They know somebody who works in a bank. And so a lot of them that are that that are gang related or or you know in any way related to having a sophisticated plot involving inside job.
Complex Miami Bank Robbery: A Case Study
00:04:58
Speaker
Now, there are some I'm sure that they do some surveillance that they're looking for a bank that is farther away from him from the police headquarters, that's close to a major interstate so they can make a fast getaway. and think there's There's some of that. It's a minority of the number of banks that are robbed that way, but there are some. So is there a story of the the craziest or most sophisticated bank robbery you've seen in your time?
00:05:25
Speaker
I would say the the one that most related to the ones, I shouldn't say the one bank, but several bank robberies that took place in the late 80s, actually middle late 80s down in Miami, Florida, that unfortunately resulted in the death of two FBI agents and the wounding of three others.
00:05:42
Speaker
Those were two guys that were exactly what you're describing. These guys were serious badasses. They were armed in the teeth. um They went in guns blazing. They robbed numerous banks in South Florida before the FBI was on to them and then tried to take them down on the way to rob another bank. That's a pretty famous story. There are in books about it.
00:06:02
Speaker
one of the agents who was a real hero. They're all heroes, but one who valiantly fought while he was seriously wounded and ended up firing the fatal shots, even though the two robbers were shot many, many times, and that was part of the story.
Hostage Situations: Why are they usually avoided?
00:06:16
Speaker
That one resonates. It resonates really for me, not only because I was an FBI agent, but when I was in the FBI Academy,
00:06:24
Speaker
Ed Morales, that's the agent who was seriously wounded and and ended up finishing off. The two bank robbers was one of the instructors down there. Part-time, he came down basically to decompress. He was still a little bit wounded. He had very serious arm injuries and was rehabilitating and as part of the FBI's efforts to get him kind of you know back to a place where he could <unk> be an FBI agent again, he was sort of on sabbatical at the Academy and I got to hear that story full-time from him. So that's a dramatic event that I'm aware of, although i was not I didn't participate in it. Another one that sticks out in my mind is when I was a senior management official in a field office. I believe it was two robbers. It might have been three, but I think it was only two. and Their plot, really bold, was ah to grab and a female bank manager. She came out of work and locked up the bank at
00:07:19
Speaker
I don't know, five o'clock, six o'clock in the evening when the bank closed, took her home to her house, tied up her family in the basement and waited overnight with the with the whole family to then take her back to the bank at opening time because they knew that the way the vaults were set that they didn't want to go in at five o'clock because the vault was already closed. They wanted to be in there at opening.
00:07:44
Speaker
you know when she got there open to the bank for her and the employees, but before the customers could come in. And they successfully you know took a significant amount of money and made a getaway, but then you know we we caught up to them, I would say, within two or three days. But that was the most sophisticated, sort of outrageous one I had in a pardon.
00:08:04
Speaker
That's a scary situation involving the hostage taking.
Bank Teller Protocol: Are robbers always assumed armed?
00:08:07
Speaker
Correct. you know is that ah Is that a common tactic that bank robbers will use? ah is Are they often trying to take hostages and and use that leverage? Or is that something that, you know in a lot of cases, they they try to avoid? I think the latter. I think they try to avoid it. In and out as fast as they can and not get ah pinned down in a hostage situation.
00:08:27
Speaker
Is that a deliberate choice to... yeah you know I'm imagining a hostage situation, it becomes more complicated for the robbers to get away. I imagine it draws more law enforcement. What what drives that kind of strategy?
00:08:38
Speaker
and So I think to avoid it at speed, they went in and out ah because they know that there's a certain amount of time as soon as the alarms go off and all the banks, it's not any state secret that banks all have silent alarms that can be triggered by all the employees and that go directly to an alarm company, which notifies the police department and many jurisdictions. I'm not sure the percentage, but some of them go right to a police switchboard.
00:09:01
Speaker
So they know they have a limited amount of time. And that if a hostage situation develops, it's usually because the time got away from them or the police got there sooner than they thought. That that happens. I'm aware of... I'm trying to think of...
00:09:15
Speaker
exactly when it happened or which city I was assigned in. But the police being right outside, the alarm goes off and they're right there. And now you have a hostage situation because they couldn't have anticipated that a police car would be right out front, just happenstance. But yeah, I think for the most part, they would 100% try to avoid that hostage situation. And when it happens, it's only because someone went wrong.
00:09:39
Speaker
Except the one I described where they took her home, kept her hostage overnight and then brought her. So that's clearly one where they wanted it, but not inside the bank. And it was sort of secret. She couldn't call for help. Earlier, you mentioned something about, you know, a lot a lot of these robberies, they don't even have a weapon. How how does that work? how How does a robber rob a bank without a weapon? Because I think they know that the tellers are all trained to act like it's an armed robbery no matter what. So Many of them don't even have a weapon. If they had money for a weapon, they'd have money for the small amount of drugs they want to buy with with the proceeds of the bank robbery for some of them. But I think some of them, are they think they're being tactical that by saying they have a weapon when they don't, that that would be less of a crime or get them less time. It doesn't really. I think threatening to have a weapon is the same as having one in most jurisdictions.
Hollywood vs. Reality: Do movies get bank robberies right?
00:10:32
Speaker
But the tellers will act the same way. They won't ask to see the weapon and or you know treat it any differently just because the note says they have one or they say they have one and they don't. So I think they play off of that. They know that. So I think most people, myself included, have a very kind of Hollywood vision of of bank robberies in their head when we think about this. Are there important details of bank robberies that don't make it into the movies or the movies consistently get wrong or or things people don't think about that that you've seen in your career?
00:11:03
Speaker
So, one of the things that we always strive to do, and we when I was in the FBI, of course, you know bank robberies are a federal violation, but most jurisdictions across the country, it's it's either worked in conjunction with the FBI or the local police work the bank robbery themselves, especially after 9-11 when the FBI transitioned from doing a lot of criminal investigations to less criminal investigations and more national security-related investigations.
00:11:28
Speaker
So many, many fleeced farmers do their own bank robbery investigations. But what we used to try and stress and what we never did during a bank robbery investigation was discuss how much money ben bank robbers were getting because you know you don't want to make it look profitable. And I'll say it can be profitable, but I don't know if it's as profitable as most bank robbers think it is.
00:11:50
Speaker
And so we always would just say, you know, a significant amount of money or we're looking for an amount of money that got away with an amount of money without saying exactly how much that was. I know you don't want to publicize the yeah the exact take amount. is there a you know you You mentioned it's it's lower than people expect. Is there a public instance that you know of of sort of what's the most in a career that a bank robber has ever taken away you know from from this kind
Armored Car Robberies: Planning and Execution
00:12:20
Speaker
of career? Is there a rough estimate? Probably tens of thousands, but that would be over multiple robberies. Yeah. They could get tens of thousands over multiple robberies, but most of them
00:12:31
Speaker
I mean, almost all of these get solved. we used to have a I taught an interview in interrogation for a while and one of the techniques we used to teach was you know and in interviewing a bank robber or ah a robber, an armed robber, that the average life expectancy from the time they first do an armed robbery until they were either caught or dead is like less than six months. So this isn't a long-term career prospect.
00:12:56
Speaker
and Very few bank robbers get away yeah forever. Very few. ah You've shattered our illusion of you know duffel bags with money signs on them you know coming out of the out of the vault. I wonder if you know if we stick on this Hollywood image, right? but You mentioned the careers are quite short. Does that mean that you know getaway driver as a role is not you know not a career path that's um open for me at this point? Or is that such a thing? right Do they have specialists and roles like you see in the movie or is it not not so much that way?
00:13:25
Speaker
Yeah, they do actually. There's not any training involved or anything or or any specialty. It's usually just like, all right, you know, Joe, you're going to drive, we're going in. But yeah, they do have like getaway drivers. That happens when when there are yeah multiple people involved as opposed to most of them being the lone gunman. But when there are multiple ones, yeah, there's one guy out there waiting.
00:13:47
Speaker
And a lot of the scenarios you see on TV, the movies where you know the cops roll up quickly, the other way driver will leave. I mean, they're not hanging around waiting not hanging around waiting for their buddies if they see the police show up and that's happened, sure.
00:14:01
Speaker
So I think all this talk of Hollywood, there's a question I have to ask. We've got FX Reagan on the show, the the the definitive expert on this. So settle this matter once and for all. What is the most accurate bank robbery movie out there? So heat probably is pretty good. and And one thing, I mean, look, I said most of these guys get caught. So don't anybody take anything away from this that I'm giving anybody any recommendations about what to do or how to do this, but Armored car robberies can be a lot different than bank robberies. Those tend to be planned a lot more. They don't tend to get away with them because they get investigated and for the most part get solved, but they tend to be a little more complicated. There's a little more thinking. There's a lot more people involved. at almost I think I've posted about this in social media several times.
00:14:54
Speaker
I think I was involved in maybe 12 armored car robberies as an investigator, not as a robber.
Who are bank robbers? Psychological Profiles and Motivations
00:15:02
Speaker
And every one of them was an inside job, one way or another. It was somebody that had a friend who used to work there. They used to work there. The friend still worked there. The friend was one of the drivers. The friend was on the loading dock when they're loading up the money. So I mean, some of those do happen and some of those involve a lot of money.
00:15:22
Speaker
Yeah. Hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes. So those are sort of the ones, the armored car robberies are kind of the the spin that you see in the movies on bank robberies because those do happen like that.
00:15:36
Speaker
That's really interesting. You mentioned that's a little bit more complex and there's more planning that goes into that. you know I've heard i've heard stories right stories, apocryphal stories that you know in prison, ah the the population will treat the armed robbers as sort of more dangerous and sophisticated than your average murderer. Would you say from your experience, there's a certain type of criminal profile, a psychological profile that that that lends itself to being a bank robber?
00:16:00
Speaker
Okay, well, aside from the one offs we talk a lot about that are the majority of them who just need the money for drugs. Yeah, certainly risk takers, people who are not, you know, well socialized to following the rules that need the money quickly, that think that if they're going to get away with it, I certainly agree with your premise that armed robbers in prison are probably viewed as more dangerous. Most most murderers, at least here in the United States, most murders are somebody they know. It's the the one and only time they're going to kill somebody. ah They're not serial killers. They're not up to kill more than one person. They're pissed off at somebody and kill them. So yeah, I think armed robbers generally are more dangerous than murderers.
00:16:40
Speaker
So we're not talking about gentlemen, thieves, hero. Are there linkages between other kinds of armed groups, you know insurgents, terrorist networks, et cetera, and bank robberies? is Is this something that is used as a tactic to fund yeah armed movements? I think there used to be more than there is today.
00:17:01
Speaker
I think going back to some of the early you know white nationalist groups in the late 70s, early 80s, maybe here in the United States, I think maybe even overseas, maybe even with the IRA. I can't point to a specific example, but i think it I think that maybe used to be the case more than
International Bank Robberies: Why are they rare?
00:17:20
Speaker
now. It's too dangerous now. and if your If your ultimate goal is ah you know, an act of terrorism and you need funds to do that. You need a more certain way. ah You can't risk getting caught. You can't risk getting caught quickly. You can't risk the people that are that get caught for the robbery giving up the terrorist plot. It's just it's just way too it's way too complicated.
00:17:43
Speaker
so You're mentioning kind of the international angle there with the IRA. you know We're talking kind of speaking about the the national level ah of investigation of bank robberies, but are there international bank robberies? Is that you know something you've seen transnational bank robberies and investigations and things like that?
00:18:00
Speaker
Okay, this so this will be since I've been out of the game, but there's a lot of aggressive robberies going on in the California area with Chilean gangs. A lot of them are burglaries, arm-tone burglaries. A lot of them are armed robberies at jewelry stores and things like that. I imagine some of them were involved in banks.
00:18:18
Speaker
Again, I don't think there's any terrorist angle to them. I think they're just gangs. And I've heard and read that you know some of the MOs, they'll come in here for a short period of time for the express purpose of acquiring a certain amount of cash, and then they go back back to Chile with the money.
Old School Deterrents: Are they still effective?
00:18:38
Speaker
So yeah, I think there are some, but not I haven't seen a lot. not I'm not aware of a lot in the United States of international armed bank rampers.
00:18:47
Speaker
so In the modern world, ah one thing I'm really curious about is what what's the role of technology in bank robberies? are there you know in the In the movies, we often see kind of the technical expert who cuts the alarm or redirects the call to ah to a fake police line, ah you know the safe crackers and so on. Do these kind of roles exist? is is there Is there a use for this kind of technological expertise in a bank robbery?
00:19:11
Speaker
You know, there's not a lot of it. I think most of the technology is old technology, cameras. I mean, we used to joke back in 30 years ago that it was one of the few crimes you could commit where you're guaranteed to get your picture taken. And that was when there were kind of the the dawn of where cameras everywhere. They were in banks before they were everywhere else. So there's always been cameras or has been for a long time. There's always been silent alarms, has been for a long time. ah There's been dye packs. I mean, that's true. The the tellers will throw dye packs or the dye packs will be part of the money that they take out of the till. It's not obvious they take the money out of the till. There's a dye pack in it. It goes into the,
00:19:55
Speaker
whatever pillowcase or the shopping bag or whatever the armed robber's using and when they hit the door, not a state secret, there's ah there's a triggering mechanism on the door that sets off the die pack for a certain period of time, 20 seconds. So when it goes through the door, trips that alarm to the die pack inside you know the bag that the robbers carry in and then 30 seconds and then later the die pack goes off. But that this is not new technology that's been going on for years.
00:20:23
Speaker
But in terms of the much more sophisticated like you're talking about with bypassing alarms, you know coming in the roof, things like that at nighttime, that happens or bank burglaries. But I think the vaults make it much harder to do that than say yeah you know a grocery store or you know a drug store, somebody that else that has cash on the premises and maybe a crude safe that can be cut into a bank vault is pretty serious. You're you're talking a real specialty if somebody were able to break into a vault.
The Fate of Stolen Money: Where does it go?
00:20:56
Speaker
So having robbed a bank, how do these robbers dispose of this cash? You know, we've had Yaya Fanuzion on a previous season, he discussed sort of money laundering with us. But are there any kind of short term tricks used by these bank robbers to try and and launder or fence this money?
00:21:13
Speaker
Well, having said most of it is drug-related, I'd say that it would go that way. It would just be involved in purchasing drugs or buying larger amounts of drugs from your supplier. I can't say specifically, but I know that in one major metropolitan the city, I was an SBI agent for a long time. There were a lot of like car washes and used to call them party stores or really just stores that sell alcohol, small amounts of grocery, cigarettes, lottery tickets, things like that. A lot of cash business, good place to longer money. so yeah i mean Any way to get rick a lot of them owe money. so Whatever they're getting, they they ah they owe it to somebody, whether it's you know a drug dealer that they're in Hawk 4 or something like that. so
00:22:01
Speaker
Again, I'll go back to the fact that most of them are not that sophisticated, so the amount of money that they get ah quickly gets spent.
Engagement: Explore More on Geopolitical Issues
00:22:09
Speaker
We've been speaking to FX Reagan about how to rob a bank. After the break, we'll be talking about how banks and other law enforcement agencies counter this threat.
00:22:27
Speaker
You have been listening to How to Get on a Watchlist, the podcast series from Encyclopedia Geopolitica. If you like this show, don't forget to check out our other content at Encyclopedia Geopolitica, which you can find at howtogettontawatchlist.com, where you can find our analysis on various geopolitical issues, as well as reading lists covering topics like those discussed in the podcast.
Bank Security: Prevention over Confrontation
00:22:51
Speaker
Please also consider subscribing to the podcast on your streaming platform of choice, giving us a rating and joining our Patreon.
00:23:14
Speaker
So we've been talking to FX Reagan about how to rob a bank. can Now let's talk a little bit about how banks protect themselves. So FX, how do banks deter robberies? How do they protect themselves?
00:23:26
Speaker
I think it first starts with training. Most banks have a pretty robust training regime for all of the employees, tellers. The most important thing is to stay safe, ah not to confront a bank robber, not to do anything that you know would spook them or cause them to shoot somebody or take hostages or something like that. ah Most of them work very closely with the police and with the FBI to facilitate this training. Back in the day, there used to be a lot of task forces.
00:23:55
Speaker
In fact, one of the very first FBI task forces was a bank robbery task force in New York with the NYPD. So I think that's the main thing is training with employees. Of course, you know I spoke earlier about the vaults. That's a time honored tradition or how or a way of protecting money. Nobody can open a vault once it's closed. There's only a certain amount of money there. There's only a certain amount of money in the tills. I think those are kind of the the general ways that they protect themselves.
00:24:25
Speaker
ah Going off of this, you know acknowledging that banks themselves are now fairly hardened targets, you mentioned in the first half that the armored cars, the transport of the money is ah is a particular weak point where there's potential for for greater take. and there Are there other locations you know at the top of your mind that are at heightened risk for targeting by these kinds of robbers? And then how are these locations you know ah better able to make themselves harder target? So jewelry stores for sure.
00:24:53
Speaker
especially high-end jewelry stores, they are at risk because there's so much valuable merchandise there. Many of them do the same thing that banks do. They have pretty sophisticated alarm systems, brief, sophisticated cameras, ah the alarms that go you know to a monitoring station.
00:25:11
Speaker
and They're pretty good about putting things away, not leaving any jewelry out after a certain period of time. Many of them, we didn't talk about this with banks, but it applies to banks and to a lot of jewelry stores and to other ah businesses that have value and merchandise, and that's armed guards or off-duty police. That can be dangerous, it can be a dangerous job, but it also can be a real deterrent.
00:25:31
Speaker
even though an armed robber with ah with a will, if you had your choice between a bank or a jewelry store that had an armed uniformed officer or a guard there and one that didn't, you clearly go to the one that didn't.
Insider Threats: How are they prevented?
00:25:44
Speaker
And many banks will have lines of banks at one company. It's their policy to have you know a uniformed armed guard in that bank all the time.
00:25:56
Speaker
so Staying on this theme of of policies, there are are banks required to meet kind of minimum security standards? Are there any laws that say you know if you're a bank, you have to have XYZ in place, or is it really ah up to the banks?
00:26:08
Speaker
um I think the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which which ins ensures banks has a certain standard that they have to have of security in place, ah including training, and in order to to be an FDIC bank and nobody would be an FDIC. There are no FDIC banks that I'm aware of. For the most part, there are probably some small private banks that aren't FDIC insured, but yeah, I think and think the answer to that is yes.
00:26:34
Speaker
So since we're on this topic of of insurance and what's required you know to to meet that standard, you're talking a lot about the training and the security procedures that are in place. you know Being insured against these robberies, you know what what what sort of role does the insurance side of this play in how the banks design their response procedures? Is the money basically considered a total write-off as part of those procedures, or or how does that relationship work between the insurers and the banks?
00:27:02
Speaker
I think for the most part, it's probably just a total write-off. If this is a significant amount of money, then that's different than you than the FDSC I think would come in and and make those losses to the bank whole because they pay to be an FDI student. It's like any other insurance, right? You pay for it. But I'm sure that the deductibles, if that's what they even call it in that industry, are probably pretty high. A couple thousand dollar loss, the bank just eats it, but you start to sneak up and lose a significant amount of money in an armed robbery and you know even an armored car robbery. there are some There are several armored car robberies that have never been solved. Big ones in the hundreds of thousands um that um I'm sure that the FDSC had to pay off on that. yeah
00:27:43
Speaker
So you talked in the first half of the show about the insider risk, right? The inside job kind of angle on these these these robberies. In season two, we've we've talked about insider risks with Dr. Maria Robson moreroe and Ro and Holden Triplett. And you know, they're focusing on that, especially from sort of an espionage side. But but how can banks specifically work against that kind of threat? Because it's not not an area I see the insider threat community talk quite a bit about the specific kind of of of insider.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yes, I mean, you always start with background checks, background investigations. and know Typically, your lower level employees and banks are not highly paid. You're not getting a highly skilled worker, highly educated. you know But you can do the minimal amount, like a background check, including a police check to see if they have a you know a prior record that would show you that they have a problem that might manifest itself by being around a lot of money, like a theft problem, a drug problem.
How should bystanders react during a robbery?
00:28:42
Speaker
oftentimes, as I think I mentioned, the the insider is you know the girlfriend of the robber. And I've even seen it where they're more than one, many times. they' they're the and They're the unwilling insider. The boyfriend just decides that he needs cash, and she's going to be the conduit to get that cash, and she basic he basically forces her to do it.
00:29:03
Speaker
So, yeah, to the extent that they can do a good job of screening employees before they get them, that's probably the best ah deterrence, making sure that you know if An employee who was an otherwise good employee that didn't have a record starts to have a problem with you know attendance showing up ah intoxicated or high. There's a little of indicators that that person has a personal problem that might be somewhere to go with you know moving that employee out so that they don't become a problem, don't become the inside threat. I think those are the things that they probably have in place to try and minimize that risk.
00:29:43
Speaker
What about bystanders then? you know If you're ah you're a random customer queuing up at the bank one day and you find yourself in the middle of a robbery, you know i'm I'm assuming playing the hero to try and save ah you know the bank's money is probably not the best course of action, but but what should a bystander do? What's your advice for anyone who finds themselves in a situation like this?
00:30:04
Speaker
Here's what I tell people. I'm still authorized to carry my firearm 24 seven under we call it HR 218. I think the name of the law has changed, but retired law enforcement officers who continue who receive training every year are authorized in all 50 states in the United States to carry a firearm. If I were in a bank with my firearm and or anywhere, grocery store, drug store, and a robbery, we're going down.
00:30:32
Speaker
I'd want to be the best witness possible, period. Go to cover, get out of the way, don't try and do anything. That's my advice to people who are standing here and don't have a firearm or are have never been trained, ah don't know anything about robberies. You just want to be as invisible as possible.
Tracing Stolen Money and High-Risk Cities
00:30:49
Speaker
You want to be away from the person with the gun as quickly as you can, safely. Yeah, absolutely don't do anything. Now, the good news is most people don't go to banks much anymore. I mean, everything is on your phone or drive-through. It's really not a lot of reason to go in the bank. Sometimes you have to sign papers. Sometimes you're opening an account. Sometimes you're getting a loan, so you have to be in the bank. But you know for the most part, you don't see lines of people in the bank like you used to in the old days where 10, 20 people standing in line in a lobby. It doesn't happen a lot. But again, you want to be the best was best witness possible.
00:31:25
Speaker
So to that point, you know you mentioned before that the money is insured anyway, right? It's it's not worth you know losing your life over. What happens to that money, though, that goes out the door? you know Is it is it ah invalidated at any point? Does the bank know okay which serial numbers of money we had that went out the door? There's die packs that you mentioned before? Or can anybody just kind of scoop these bags up and spend them willy-nilly?
00:31:47
Speaker
Yeah, so a combination of all three. ah There's a lot of money that's not traceable. ah There's money that has the die pack explosion on it and hopefully on the robber. I mean, we've caught, and then the old caught red handed. That's where that phrase comes from. You know, you've been caught red handed because the red die pack blew up. I think a lot of them were blue now or purple, if I remember correctly. But yeah, when I was working bank robberies, you know, on a squad, a violent crime squad in a big city,
00:32:15
Speaker
We caught a whole lot of bank robbers with the dye all over them, the clothes inside the car. I mean, it was great. And I and guess that still happens. So yeah, there's that. There's the dye on the money. And then there are serial numbers that are captured. So in every, those tills will have, you know, pre-staged money that the serial numbers are captured. And so we can write down and and have the serial numbers and kind of follow backwards. And many a robber has been caught, you know, spending cash that has a serial number recorded.
00:32:43
Speaker
So just coming back to the the the Hollywood depictions, I'm thinking about the the movie, The Town, um about Charlestown, Massachusetts, which which really claimed that that was kind of an epicenter of of a spade of bank robberies. Are there national hotspots
Task Forces and Technology: Combating Bank Robberies
00:32:58
Speaker
like this? And and thinking particularly about the law enforcement response, are there you know special task forces stood up to address these kinds of hotspots? How does that dynamic work? Yeah, so I think the answer is yes.
00:33:12
Speaker
Los Angeles used to be the real hotspot. I think at one time in, the I'll say the middle 2000s, early 2000, five, six, seven, something like that. I mean, they they were having 30, 40, 50 bank robberies a day. I mean, it was crazy. And there was a famous shootout that took place in Los Angeles. I cannot remember the timeframe. I want to say the late 90s. Google, it'll come right up. And there's a lot of video of it. I mean, they were yeah hundreds and hundreds of rounds fired between the police and the bank robbers. So yeah, there are hotspots, mostly big cities. You can you can think of them, the big ones, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, where they have spades of bank robberies like that that are very violent, that happen a lot. And there are certainly task forces between the local police, different federal agencies, if it's a state, the state police, neighboring jurisdictions, because that's, you know,
00:34:09
Speaker
that that happens a lot where the you know the major a major city suburb has five or six major suburbs and the bank robbers don't care about jurisdictional lines. So rob in one county one day and next county the next day. And so the police have to coordinate that and and make sure they're all working the same the same target. One of the things we used to do, it still happens I'm sure, is ah and and I have in my notes on how not to rob a bank but You never want to be the target of ah of an FBI investigation where there's a nickname for the robber because that means you've arrived at the big time. And and that's one of the things we used to do is, you know, we had the
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, you know the bag man robber because they put a bag over their head, or the left-handed robber because they apparently had a gun in their left hand, so appeared left-handed, or the pigeon-toed bank robber or something like that. If you acquire a nickname, you're going to get caught. Let me tell you.
Cooperation: Banks and Law Enforcement
00:35:07
Speaker
It sounds a lot like insurgents in CTE missions and so on. As soon as the insurgent gets a name, their days are numbered. and I believe ah a moment ago you were talking about the Battle of North Hollywood. is that the take plus That was 1997, and if I've got the story right, it was where two heavily armored robbers ended up with a shootout in LA with the police. um so that's ah Sounds like something really out of heat or a similar movie.
00:35:32
Speaker
You know, there's this longstanding ah myth that in the roaring 20s, especially the bank robbers, you know, body and client were better armed than the G-men that were trying to catch them, run them down. Is that a real concern for police forces, especially now at the municipal level? You know, I talked about the Miami shootout in 1986 earlier, and that was definitely the case there. ah The FBI agents were armed with revolvers for the most part. There were a couple of SWAT agents that had the first iterations of semi-automatic handguns that agents were carrying. They weren't a great gun.
00:36:03
Speaker
and they had shotguns, but no long guns you know like they have today. That case, that 1986 literally put the FBI on a war footing to upgrade their Sidon and resulted in going from a 357 Magnum revolver initially to a 10 millimeter Smith and Wesson, which at the time was a gun that was developed around the bullet. The FBI came up with what they thought was the perfect round, which is a 10 millimeter, they thought, roughly equivalent to a 40 millimeter today.
00:36:39
Speaker
And they designed that that weapon around that gun. It was heavy. It had a heavy kick. It was hard for a lot of people to qualify with it. And eventually and the FBI went to a nine millimeter SIG, 226 and 228. That was the direct result of that. I mean, it was great angst and discussion and and research and so many things that went on as a result of that one incident. Today, I'd say the average police response, the average cruiser for almost every, if not most, or most, if not every police department, they're probably better armed than than and the bank robbers. Not that you can't be. And if you're a bank robber and you want to really want to be armed, you can go get as many guns or as many weapons as you and your gang ah can acquire. But for the most part, the police are pretty well armed.
00:37:32
Speaker
Just coming back to the banks, I'm thinking about kind of countermeasures. there Are there any modern countermeasures in banks that that we don't see in the movies? You talked about die packs, for example. Are there are any other kind of clever bits of tech that exist to help protect banks against this sort of attack? I don't think so. you know The favorite that people go to is facial recognition software. It's used to really not be anything, but AI is making it more of a thing. I'm a bit out of the game on that when it relates to banks, but I got to believe that it'd be something they have an interest in, especially for no robbers because you know I talk about the the task forces and the nicknames. and
00:38:11
Speaker
ah the training, and you know there is quite a robust share of information. So if there's you know a robber going around town hitting different branches of yeah different named banks, they're all going to keep track of it. And you know the security directors of these banks all know each other. Most of them are former law enforcement ah from the area jurisdictions or from the federal agencies. So they'll keep on top of that.
00:38:35
Speaker
But in terms of really high-end technology, I'm i'm not really aware of any. it's you know It's a dynamic prime which is going to walk in the door unexpectedly. And you know again, other than than being prepared for it and having the bank robber get his little amount of money out the door safely, which is you know ultimately the goal.
00:38:56
Speaker
you know You mentioned that a lot of these security directors of these banks are you know themselves former law enforcement. They're in these networks of of you know other security directors of other banks.
Challenges in Solving Bank Robbery Cases
00:39:07
Speaker
What's the intelligence sharing look like there you know between the banks between the banks and law enforcement about the environment, about the kinds of threats, about the the tactics? you know Is that a strong relationship that's ongoing?
00:39:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think at several levels. I mean, they have you know informal get-togethers every Friday at the coffee shop to ah you know conferences at the local, regional, and national level. ah They're dialed into you know major security organizations with their own subgroups. So, yeah, i think I think it's a very robust um sharing of information. Yeah. You mentioned also, you know, that the AI technologies that are coming out that are that are changing how people do security, physical security, is there any kind of tech that you're aware of on the law enforcement side that the police departments or the FBI have that they can bring to bear in kind of creative ways to to prevent bank robberies, to track them when they happen? Is there anything we haven't seen in the films, right, that that's a new tool?
00:40:04
Speaker
It's not necessarily new, but it's really become effective, and that's license plates readers. You know, jurisdictions, their apprehension rate for criminals across the board, whether it's armed robbers, murderers traveling, different jurisdictions, drug dealers, stolen cars, you pick a crime that involves moving on it in a car.
00:40:27
Speaker
The license plate readers are set up around town or around a county or a jurisdiction. The ability of those license plate readers to capture you know tens of thousands of license plates at a day and quickly identify the one and get the message to the police that it just went through 21st and Main Street and have the police respond and get that vehicle is amazing and happening at a really rapid pace across the country for the places that have those.
00:40:55
Speaker
so What about after a successful robbery? Let's say the the robbers have gotten away. how How do banks and law enforcement agencies work to recover the funds and and catch the perpetrators? and and In particular, I'm really interested in what does the investigation around this type of crime look like? How long to take and and you know how likely are they to be successful? I think they can be quick ah fairly quickly solved for the most part.
00:41:18
Speaker
But i mean some of them can drag it out, especially as we you know we talked about the serial bank robber or somebody who's acquired a nickname because they're doing so many of
FBI's Evolving Role Post-9/11
00:41:25
Speaker
them. yeah know Those can go on for weeks, months. um I don't think many go much more than you know a couple of months, even the most sophisticated.
00:41:34
Speaker
But it starts out with commonalities. okay is this you know The guy that just robbed the bank at 21st and Maple, is that the same one that hit yesterday over in you know and' in Springfield? Is that the same one that hit you know in Chicago? So trying to tie together the bank robberies to see if you're part this is part of a the you know the same person or persons that are doing it so you can sort of narrow that focus down and have either you or you know the police or the investigators that are on that particular group of robbers working that angle. Certainly informants help out people in the in the neighborhood who know what's going on. Every police officer, FBI agent, federal agent has groups of informants that they can call on and say, hey, who knows what about the bank robber 21st and Maple yesterday? Somebody knows something.
00:42:22
Speaker
ah reward money that's out there, ah either from the police or the FBI or most jurisdictions now have crime stoppers where they anonymously pay for tips and you know it gets out to crime stoppers. There's a pretty good chance that somebody is going to call the the tip line at two o'clock in the morning and and tell the police exactly who did it. and you know they do They're successful in getting you know a couple hundred dollars or whatever the the reward for that is. That's one way of doing it.
00:42:51
Speaker
ah Fingerprints have solved a lot of banks, you know a lot of bank robberies, photographs, because a lot of these people are getting their picture taken. So ah yeah, you can put a mask on, but a lot of them don't, surprisingly. So they get their picture taken, and now this guy shows up on three different bank robberies. Again, you have informants out there, or you go through driver license pictures, and boom, there he is. So there's all kinds of ways to you know work that investigation and find out who did it.
00:43:19
Speaker
Yeah, you initially asked about the money. most ah Unless it's a big robbery and you catch them quickly, there's not a lot of money recovered most of the time. It seems to get spent quickly. And again, I keep going back. It's not a lot of money for the most part.
00:43:34
Speaker
So you mentioned before that after 9-11, the FBI kind of downsized the the role it played in investigating a lot of these local bank robberies in particular. Is this still something that yeah your average investigator at a field office is going to have a lot of training on? you know Is it a core competency that that everybody gets the training at Quantico on? And how's it how's it regarded you know within a career? Is this something where you're going to tell tell a lot of stories and and you know it's it's well-regarded that, yeah, you worked the big bank robbery case? Or is it you know it's it's more like routine police work?
00:44:04
Speaker
You know, in the FBI, when I was there, you know, before 9-11 and after 9-11, it's really almost two different organizations. Before 9-11, you know, agents that worked criminal, which was 80% of the agents worked criminal matters, 20% worked counterintelligence or counterterrorism. And so the agents that worked criminal matters tended to work what they wanted to work. They just kind of got drawn to white collar crime. They got drawn to violent crime.
00:44:31
Speaker
they got drawn to public corruption and they got drawn to undercover work. And then just kind of, it was a niche. And so you just kind of worked it. And, you know, you could put in for whatever you wanted. If you were on a drug squad and you really wanted to work violent crime, you just go ask the boss, hey, next time there's an opening on the violent crime squad, I don't want to go over there. And you get over there. But yeah, I think it was looked at at the time as, you know, sort of, a you know, if you were a former cop, like I was, and you're drawn to doing real police work,
00:45:02
Speaker
bank robberies, fugitives, stolen cars, heists, things like that were you know kind of more in your wheelhouse than public corruption or you know white collar crime. So I think agents really like to work in it.
00:45:16
Speaker
I think they probably still do, and there's some of it that still goes on. It's not a priority, but if there were you know to pop up in a major city, you know a major armed robbery gang that seemed pretty sophisticated and that the FBI could lend resources in or to, I'm sure they'd be right in.
Cashless Society: How will bank robberies change?
00:45:35
Speaker
I'm sure they are.
00:45:36
Speaker
um So, it's something that still gets worked. It's just not as it's not as big a priority as it used to be because, yeah again, mostly most police departments, their robbery divisions, their homicide robbery units, pretty confident they can they they don't need the FBI to help. They'll take the FBI south, but they don't, for the most part, need that.
00:45:54
Speaker
So coming off of the back of that, do you have any advice for anybody that's considering a career in law enforcement that's similar to your career, kind of moving around, touching on this subject and other subjects? What's what's your best advice for those up and covers?
00:46:07
Speaker
I hope people do because the you know the news about how hard it is for police departments to recruit right now is certainly highly accurate. I've seen a lot of forums with with former police, former FBI agents. so and you know It's amazing that 30 years ago,
00:46:27
Speaker
generally, it was pretty competitive to get hired as a police officer. I mean, written tests, they still have all these things, don't get me wrong. But you know you'd have a certain number of applicants going into the written test, the ah but oral board interview, the polygraph, the physical both the the medical part and the physical training part, the PT test. and you know there There was quite a weeding down of applicants between the time people put in and the time they went to the academy today.
00:46:59
Speaker
it It's not a job that a lot of people aspire to, and i mean some of it is just the demeaning of the police in the last couple of years, unfortunately. There's a lot of second guessing that goes on, and a lot of police officers that are afraid to do their job because they see you know ah one bad shooting away from going to prison. Now, that's where the training and you know doing being smart and and hopefully having good decision and judgment comes in that that doesn't happen. but you know
00:47:31
Speaker
Things happen fast and you know there are there are police officers out there doing the right thing and maybe they're in the wrong jurisdiction in a shooting or something. They get in involved in one city or state. Nothing would happen to them and 500 miles away, they're looking at prison time. so I hope people can consider that job. I hope they can go into it with their eyes wide open.
00:47:54
Speaker
you know it is it It can be a dangerous job, but it can be a really rewarding career to to serve your community and and your country, and I hope people do. One question. you know we've We've talked a lot about the the kind of the history of how bank robberies have happened and so on, and how how you've seen that evolve over your career.
00:48:12
Speaker
Looking to the future, you know what do you think bank robberies are going to look like in the coming years? and One thing in particular I'm thinking here is we're moving towards a cashless society. I can't think of the last time I carried cash. What are these crimes look like in in that kind of world? Do do the commodities being targeted change? Do the targets change?
00:48:33
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you. In fact, I mean, it in just in the community I live in, there's no big banks. There are a big bank companies, you know, JP Morgan Chase, but they're just very small branches that, again, I was saying earlier, nobody ever goes to. Maybe they go to the drive-thru. And I think that's a function of what you're talking about. There's just just that cash is not really a thing. I'm with you. I can have $20 in my wallet for a month.
00:48:57
Speaker
So, yeah, I think the crimes do change. I think the people who are drawn toward violent crime that don't have the sophistication to do, you know, ah something that involved in credit cards or checks or crypto or, you know, any other kind of white collar crime, they're always going to be drawn toward a violent crime. That may manifest itself in street robberies, carjackings. Just in Washington, D.C., they have like 900 carjackings this year.
00:49:24
Speaker
again, mostly young, 18, 19, 17 years old. Some of this joyriding with some of this just for the money real quick, get a car, strip it, sell the parts, buy drugs. So you know violent criminals are always going to find a way to be violent, violent robbery criminals to rob something, whether it's you know grocery stores or grocery stores, not a lot of cash.
00:49:48
Speaker
um ah gas stations, party stores, nail salons, places like
Violence Desensitization: Impact on Crime Rates
00:49:55
Speaker
that. yeah I think we're always going to have that. A final question from us that we ask everyone. What keeps you up at night and on this topic specifically, you know the the bank robberies and the violent crime? I think it's ah from a violent crime perspective, I think that it's that kind of a loss of respect for life. that you know especially young, young criminals, I don't think they realize how quickly can all end and how dangerous it is, what they're involved in, not just for them, but for, you know, the, the, the people and the, and the institutions and the places they're going into rob, how quickly things can go wrong. Uh, and that, you know, most of those sort of shootings or,
00:50:43
Speaker
you know, assaults that take place where people are really hurt. I don't think that they realize how fast that happens and how violent it is. And I don't know why that is. I don't know if it's a function of society where we're just careless about it or has anything to do with video games or music or culture. I don't know. But ah I do worry about that. I do worry about the fact that violence is desensitized and we can't go on social media and scroll for a half hour without seeing somebody get killed, literally. So just, you know, you're not even looking for it, but there's a video of, you know, somebody running from the police and getting shot in the head. And how many times can you watch that and and not have an effect on you? So I worry about the violent culture um more than any one specific
Closing Credits and Listener Engagement
00:51:30
Speaker
event. And I hope we figure it out and then we become a less violent culture. Well, ethics, Reagan, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me. It's been really good.
00:51:41
Speaker
you've been listening to How to Rob a Bank with FX Reagan. FX's extensive collection of books will all be linked in the show notes and you can follow all of his work at fxregan dot.com. We encourage our listeners to check out the books and the websites. Our producer for this show was Edwin Tran, our researcher was Alex Smith, and to all our listeners and Patreon supporters, thank you so much for supporting How to Get on a Watchlist.
00:52:03
Speaker
If you enjoyed this show, please consider checking out our other content at Encyclopedia Geopolitica. We'd also appreciate it if you could subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, or support us on Patreon. Thanks for listening.
00:52:41
Speaker
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