Peter T. Blanchard – Prevention strategy

Bank robberies have increased dramatically in the Boston area over the last four months, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, contributing to an overall increase in such crimes in 2001. Nearly 100 more bank robberies occurred in the Greater Boston area in 2001 than in 2000.

While authorities cite a number of reasons for the increase, members of the Massachusetts Bankers Association are taking matters into their own hands by creating a bank robbery task force.

We felt it might be helpful to get people around a table in a task force to talk about new ideas, new approaches, to deal with these increasing numbers of robberies, said Kevin F. Kiley, chief operating officer of the MBA.

It’s also important to understand that it’s part of an ongoing effort by our security committee [which] has been working on promoting various bank safety programs that deal with robbery-related issues, he said.

The new task force should have its first meeting within two weeks and, while all the association’s members are invited, the MBA wants to have a cross-section of member banks represented. Additionally, regulators and law enforcement officials will be invited to attend, said Peter T. Blanchard, vice president of the MBA.

While the security committee of the association provides videos and other educational materials to help bank personnel train employees what to do in the event of a robbery, Blanchard said he wants to take education a step further through the committee.

Essentially, we want to help the banks understand some of the situations where we might be able to prevent robberies, he said. That includes being more alert and getting employees out of the mindset of It won’t happen to me.

The MBA’s task force shouldn’t be confused with the Bank Robbery Task Force, an entity created by area law enforcement groups in 1985. That task force is made up of the FBI, the Massachusetts State Police, and the Boston and Cambridge police departments.

It’s always produced solution rates higher than the national average, so it’s always been consistently considered a successful task force, said John Trahon, supervisory special agent with the Bank Robbery Task Force at the Boston FBI office.

The solution rate for bank robberies is 70 percent within the first year, he said. We keep those [unsolved] cases open and over the ensuing years the majority of those cases are resolved as well, said Trahon.

Despite the highly successful task force, however, Trahon said banks could be doing much more to subvert robbers.

A lot of banks have done away with die packs [used to mark stolen money] and, of course, the [security] cameras need to be upgraded, said Trahon.

While robbers control many aspects of a robbery, from disguises and gloves to demand notes and armor, the bank has a weapon as well – the camera. It needs to be the highest quality because that photograph is a snapshot of a bank robbery that takes less than one minute to commit, Trahon said.

A lot of times we’ll have pictures of a right elbow, a left leg, he said, recounting a bank takeover in Newton a number of years ago. Four subjects, heavily armed, came in and knocked all the customers and employees to the floor, vaulted the teller area and we have beautiful pictures – from the neck down, Trahon said.

Architecture designed to create a pleasing ambiance can also be detrimental. If the camera is facing outward toward the street and the bank has a glass front, the sunshine causes the pictures to be underexposed, showing us nothing, he said.

Trahon said the current state of digital photography is excellent and usually provides high-quality pictures. Therefore, it’s important for banks to invest in the latest technology.

ATM Attacks
But while the number of bank robberies has risen, the sophistication of the robbers often hasn’t.

It doesn’t take a lot of sophistication to drive a forklift into an ATM, said Blanchard. However, we are seeing that they do have a good level of understanding of technology. But by and large, you will see the rank-and-file bank robber is still the note-passer.

While Trahon doesn’t think robbers are necessarily more sophisticated, the FBI has become more knowledgeable about what it takes to successfully prosecute a case.

That’s why you find a lot of times the robber will ask for the demand note back or they will display it and not hand it to the teller, he said.

That note is critical evidence in the prosecution and identification of bank robbers, said Trahon.

The MBA provides to its members bank robbery kits that help bank employees write down critical information about what occurred during the robbery to help law enforcement officials, said Blanchard.

The disguises haven’t really changed, however; criminals still prefer the baseball cap and sunglasses, said Trahon: Of course, if the banking industry could get together and somehow require people to take off their hats and sunglasses before they enter the inner lobby of the bank, that may deter … and lower the number of bank robberies, especially the drug-related, demand-note robberies.

While demand-note robbers get away with very little, generally about $1,500, they aren’t looking for much to begin with. Most are desperate drug addicts looking for money to buy their fix for the day. By far the demand-note robbery is the most common type, with drug addiction often providing the motivation, Trahon said.

For more sophisticated criminals, the relatively small amount held by the tellers doesn’t provide enough gain to make worthwhile the risk they would induce – a possible 20-year jail sentence if caught. But in the case of drug-driven crimes, the criminals know it’s the policy of the banks to hand over the money. We don’t want, nor does the banking industry want, any of their employees or customers hurt during the execution of a bank robbery or the subsequent attempt to apprehend the bank robber, said Trahon.

While Blanchard ascribes the increase in bank robberies, in part, to a general misconception by criminals that since Sept. 11, most federal law enforcement attention has been diverted to pursuing terrorists, Trahon sees a different cause.

My personal opinion is depression. I think a lot of people have felt anger and frustration and anxiety over what took place on [Sept. 11] and they’ve also felt depression. It’s a known fact that during the holiday season depression plays a major role in the increase in violent crimes, he said.

In all, 278 bank robberies were reported in the Boston area last year compared to 180 the previous year. But while demand-note robberies are up, armored car robberies are down.

In the 1980s and early 1990s Boston was considered the armored car robbery capital of the world, said Trahon, with such occurrences in the area numbering as many as 14 in one year. The number of armored car robberies later dropped to zero and in the past year only two such crimes were committed, he said.

But a newer crime popping up from South Attleboro to Southern New Hampshire is the ATM burglary. In addition to a special task force being formed in Lawrence to address the new trend, the Boston FBI office is also working to solve the problem, he said.

For the most part, the majority of our bank robberies are individuals acting alone. The majority are drug-related, drug-driven crimes, said Trahon.

Blanchard added that while robberies are up, employees and customers are usually perfectly safe within banks.