Odd topic I know, but I rarely see the bank robbery segments discussed here since joining. And a quick search of the boards archive didn't yield much in the way of in depth discussions, either.

Just wanted to open the floor to anyone to discuss your favorite bank robbery segment or ask a question about one you never saw an update for.

My personal favorite has to be the "Trenchcoat Bandits" (I believe this is what the FBI dubbed them). Actually, the UM segment about them just aired this week, Friday I think. I've actually kind of followed their saga ever since I first saw that UM segment back in the day. Kinda freaked out by it for some reason (robbers masks tend to do that to me).

Several years ago FBI Files (I think) did an hour on them and I knew early in the episode it was the same guys because of the reporter that took the picture of them as they made their get away. They would rob a place and go their seperate ways for as long as a year at a time. Get together and then case a new bank for as long as a month and then hit, then disappear again. Both men lead very ordinary lives and were eventually brought down by their greed and carelessness. Their biggest hit was a casino in the Northwest (I think). One of their names was Raymond?...

One of the robbers I remember UM featuring that I never saw an update on was the "Chevy Chase Bandit". Anyone remember this guy?

I don't know if this counts as a bank robbery, but my favorite is the one with the kindly, grandmotherly bank employee who regularly brought in cookies for her coworkers. She then proceeded to take large sums of cash. No one knew what hit them until it was too late. I can't remember if they caught her or not, but it was a great segment!

My favorite bank robbers were the guys who utilized the Los Angeles sewer system and made sophisticated tunnels from the sewers to the brink of the bank vaults. They apparently bought small all terrain vehicles in the San Diego area and used them in the sewers to transport the heavy materials needed to carve the tunels. At least one of those vehicles was left behind and discovered when they were nearly captured. Then several more completed tunnels were discovered. Looked like they were very close to netting millions. Just imagine all the work it took to plan and execute those tunnels. I'm amazed that case hasn't generated more publicity or scrutiny. I don't think they were ever captured.

Frankly, I always root for the robbers to escape, if they didn't harm anyone and it was a company, not individuals, they stole from. Especially the people who rob casinos. How is that even a crime? I mean, being accused of robbing a casino is like being accused of drowning a fish. Doesn't even compute.

Just wanted to open the floor to anyone to discuss your favorite bank robbery segment or ask a question about one you never saw an update for.

My personal favorite has to be the "Trenchcoat Bandits" (I believe this is what the FBI dubbed them). Actually, the UM segment about them just aired this week, Friday I think. I've actually kind of followed their saga ever since I first saw that UM segment back in the day. Kinda freaked out by it for some reason (robbers masks tend to do that to me).

Several years ago FBI Files (I think) did an hour on them and I knew early in the episode it was the same guys because of the reporter that took the picture of them as they made their get away. They would rob a place and go their seperate ways for as long as a year at a time. Get together and then case a new bank for as long as a month and then hit, then disappear again. Both men lead very ordinary lives and were eventually brought down by their greed and carelessness. Their biggest hit was a casino in the Northwest (I think). One of their names was Raymond?...

The trenchcoat bandits are my favorite too! I LOVE the sequence that UM created where they show the reporter attempting to snap an inconspicuous photograph of the robbers from her car. Talk about suspense! I'm also really glad they were caught. They were some bad dudes.

I also like the one where the bank robber applies super glue to the alarms in the bank, and handcuffs one of the bank employees to a rolling shelf. By the time the swat team gets there, the robber is long gone.

A little side story and question....
I took a criminology class back in college and there was a lecture on bank robberies. The professor had been instructed by the FBI not to reveal different security measures that banks put in place to notify authorities during a robbery (which he obviously disagreed with), but he asked if students in the class knew anything about the subject. I remembered that one UM segment where the teller removes the bottom bill in the drawer and trips the alarm, so I mentioned it in class. The professor said that the FBI had specifically asked him not to mention that! Needless to say, I've always wondered why the FBI would let UM talk about it on national tv, but my prof wasn't supposed to talk about it in class. Does anyone remember which segment that was from?

NIXON BANDIT

Does anyone remember which segment that was from?

A season three segment about a "cowboy" bank robber in the Pacific Northwest. It is one of those stories that shows how dated UM can be. The guy held up about twenty banks and managed to avoid having his picture taken, but on his most recent robbery (the one where the bill trap was pulled) he hit up a bank that had a surveillance camera, and he was photographed. D'oh! This was in 1985 or so. Are there any banks these days that don't utilize some tye of video surveillance?

This is as good a place as any...

I've always wondered why I've never seen a certain bank robbery segment. It aired in the mid-90s and featured two cases... one was called the bicycle bandit (or the grandpa bandit, can't remember which) and the other was just a normal bank robbery segment. I think I've seen every segment from my youth repeated on Lifetime at least once, but never that one. Anyone with a copy let me know.

My favorite has to be the one where this guy gets into the back of a taxi cab, straps a bomb onto the cab driver, tells him to walk into the bank with a letter he wrote, and demand money. I think the segment talked about how the taxi cab driver might have been in on the robbery. I think the segment ended with the police arriving and taking the bomb off the cab driver. It's been a little while since I've seen the segment, so I might not have the details right.

These are the type of segments I would love to see arrive on a dvd set.

This is as good a place as any...

I've always wondered why I've never seen a certain bank robbery segment. It aired in the mid-90s and featured two cases... one was called the bicycle bandit (or the grandpa bandit, can't remember which) and the other was just a normal bank robbery segment. I think I've seen every segment from my youth repeated on Lifetime at least once, but never that one. Anyone with a copy let me know.

The Bicycle Bandit has been on Lifetime. The story originally aired in the spring of 1989. I have no clue on the second story you mentioned.

There is a mid-nineties story about a Jewish-looking bank robber who always concludes his heists by shooting out the bank surveillance cameras. The story has been rerun on Lifetime on numerous occasions, but when I first saw it on NBC it was longer, and profiled three or four other unidentified bank robbers. One of whom kind of resembled (in my opinion) actor John Wesley Shipp. I've never seen this portion of the segment aired on Lifetime. If anyone has the uncut version, I would be interested in trading.

Crazy Glue bandit...............Genius!

the one I'm thinking of must be the grandpa bandit then, as it aired after the survailence camera one, and after the bit about the guy who gave false information as to his indentity (any updates on that one, or any info on the actors involved... the person playing the teller looked familiar)? So it had to have been after 1993.

How about the armored car robbery that aired yesterday on lifetime? They got away with 11 million dollars!?!?! The largest armored car robbery ever! There is a whopping 500,000 dollar reward for their capture! Anyone have any updates on this? RS said it "had all the earmarks of an inside job."

I am very curious about this one.....:crazy:

The Krazy Glue bandit was one of the best segments they ever did. How that guy drilled into the bank and wasn't caught is beyond me.

Besides that, my favorite ones were the "Ronald Reagan Mask" robber (because they made such point at mentioning the Reagan mask) and the one (perhaps it's the same?) robbery where they announced....

"Now...(holds up bag)....THIS IS A BOMB!! Nobody move, and it won't go off!"

I have always laughed out loud at that one, because HE was moving as he said that, which meant the bomb should have gone off, right? Hilarious.

I also loved Stack's deadpan...."The bomb was a phony." right after that. Duh, Bob. Thanks for the info.

The Krazy Glue bandit was one of the best segments they ever did. How that guy drilled into the bank and wasn't caught is beyond me.

Kind of like the "cowboy robber" segment I brought up in an earlier post on this thread. This is another example of a story that makes UM look dated. That robbery occurred in the mid-eighties. Perhaps perimeter alarms weren't common then. Go figure.

How about the armored car robbery that aired yesterday on lifetime? They got away with 11 million dollars!?!?! The largest armored car robbery ever! There is a whopping 500,000 dollar reward for their capture! Anyone have any updates on this? RS said it "had all the earmarks of an inside job."

I am very curious about this one.....:crazy:

Totally! I had forgotten about this one until I saw it yesterday (I've only seen it once before). It strikes me that only one of the armored car guards was interviewed for the segment. Makes me wonder if the other guard was suspected as having been part of the "inside job".

Lots of details left out of this one by UM.

this one.

oooh scurry.

Any updates on the one aired in 1993, involving the man in Alaska who wouldn't divulge his identity upon being caught? Also, any way to get cast lists for certain episodes, as IMDB isn't very helpful in that regard?

If this is the guy that tried to mail the money and pistol he had back to himself through the mail, then yes, he was caught and his real identity was found out. I can't remember his name off hand but I remember the fact that he was from Yugoslavia (pre-breakup).I think they said he was sitting in a cell courtesy of the US Gov't on federal charges.

hope this helps.

It's amazing how many of these have not yet been solved. Since I posted this topic Lifetime has (by chance) aired quite a few a ep's with armed robberies. Only one or two of them have had updates.

Yesterday's 2nd hour had the amored car robberies that took place over several years (2 of them in Minnesota). It sounded like a gang of 3 or 4 that were all in on it and they have never been caught, apparently. You have to think that in the time since UM produced this segment (1990?...) they have hit again. It makes you wonder how many of these things go unsolved.

Also yesterday was the profile of this bank robber that hit a lot in the Northwest and Southwest, had a mustache, etc. They even had video and still shots, still not update.

Probably most ingenius were the robbers (also on yesterdays ep of UM -- segment from probably 1989...?) where the robbers tunneled under the bank vault using storm drains, in Los Angeles. They were apparently never caught.

Damn, there's a lot of people that just are not talking to authorities. :lol:

How about the armored car robbery that aired yesterday on lifetime? They got away with 11 million dollars!?!?! The largest armored car robbery ever! There is a whopping 500,000 dollar reward for their capture! Anyone have any updates on this? RS said it "had all the earmarks of an inside job."

I am very curious about this one.....:crazy:

I saw this for the first time today, I'm left wondering why the guards/drivers were allowed to stop (unauthorized) for coffee and doughnuts when they were carrying $11 million dollars...

I recently received a few from a NBC airing that I don't know if were ever on Lifetime. One was dubbed the "milk carton bandit" because he stepped on a milk carton to elevate himself and quickly unlock those half doors they have in banks and entered the back area so quickly that most people in the bank didn't even realize they were being robbed. The second was the "grandpa bandit" who was probably in his 60's and wore a floppy hat and put something on two of the bank workers and told them it was a bomb. The robbery ended up lasting several minutes and he left and of course it ended up not being a bomb. I'm curious if they were ever captured. Anyone remembering these airing on Lifetime?

Totally! I had forgotten about this one until I saw it yesterday (I've only seen it once before). It strikes me that only one of the armored car guards was interviewed for the segment. Makes me wonder if the other guard was suspected as having been part of the "inside job".

Great instinct, buckeyeblogger. You got it exactly right. Check the Updates thread. MozartPC posted the info first then I added some details in the next post.

The driver was immediately the prime suspect and it turned out to be correct. He's serving 30 to life for murder and other charges, but they also had him on tape admitting to an undercover informant that he was part of the armored truck heist.

The segment is also on YouTube, thanks to dynoguy/jpenn.

Great instinct, buckeyeblogger. You got it exactly right. Check the Updates thread. MozartPC posted the info first then I added some details in the next post.

The driver was immediately the prime suspect and it turned out to be correct. He's serving 30 to life for murder and other charges, but they also had him on tape admitting to an undercover informant that he was part of the armored truck heist.

The segment is also on YouTube, thanks to dynoguy/jpenn.


I just saw that segment and it's very interesting.

So it was the driver eh? I was wondering why they said nothing about him and he wasn't even interviewed. Very strange! Plus i don't know why the lady didn't try to untie him seems strange considering it wouldn't of been too difficult to untie a few knots.

He didn't kill anyone though did he?

-Ben

He killed someone years later.

Here's my related post in the Updates thread:
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showpost.php?p=3493454&postcount=155

And here's a link to info on Ranieri and the sentencing, including his picture:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/news/extra/leonardo/0418story6_news.shtml

I'm guessing the other robbers tied him up more thoroughly than the woman, to make it look good.

how was that unsolved? it was so obvious! they stop for coffee and donuts and just randomly right next to the armored car there are a couple of guys waiting to rob them! Oh and it just happens to be a huge amount of money this time around, that's in the truck. Then the latch thingy is broken so a robber can point his gun through and control the driver. Yep, on the same day where they just happened to stop in a parking lot next to two armed robbers....what a coinkydink!

No doubt it was Ranieri's idea to begin stopping at that convenience store in the morning. He probably suggested that weeks or months beforehand, so it wouldn't appear out of place as a first time event. The female said they stopped there once or twice a week.

Well whatever happened with that guy in Pennsylvania, they profiled him like in the mid 1990's but he had been robbing banks for 15 years and had never been caught. They described him as looking like a teacher or a counselor or something because he would wear a business suit a lot of the time and he would always come in and shoot the camera I think or something. Does anyone else remember this one? Then he would walk out very calmly and get in his car and drive away. I think he robbed mostly banks in small towns in Pennsylvania.

Well whatever happened with that guy in Pennsylvania, they profiled him like in the mid 1990's but he had been robbing banks for 15 years and had never been caught. They described him as looking like a teacher or a counselor or something because he would wear a business suit a lot of the time and he would always come in and shoot the camera I think or something. Does anyone else remember this one? Then he would walk out very calmly and get in his car and drive away. I think he robbed mostly banks in small towns in Pennsylvania.

As I mentioned in another thread, one of the banks he robbed was across the street from a friend's house...who was home and heard the shots and saw the getaway car.

He was captured, but I cannot seem to find any details of it. I'll try looking on Lexis-Nexis tomorrow.

sounds like a lot of people like bank robberies and find them interesting sometimes.

i respect a good professional who would never pistol whip some civilian just because they could or steal a ring off some old lady's finger, no no none of that. it's the government's money, not mine, not yours, your money insured by the government. however no i definitely do not like or respect bank robbers such as the North Hollywood shootout guys, they would kill just for fun, and terrorize everyone in the bank. in fact they killed an armored truck driver for no reason long before the big shootout, no "freeze" or "gimmie the money" just gunned down with no explanation. It's not like a guard drew on them or forced by change of circumstance, they planned it that way from the start. I never said anything about any murderers, that's for damn sure.

I recently watched the UM's 100th episode special, one of the segmets was about a canadian bank robber who married a deaf-mute woman. Apparently, the woman had disappeared from Canada to come to the US following his husband activities. The woman's father was interviewed and he said that he wasn't afraid of the bank robber hurting his daughter but of her being caught in a crossfire with the police.

In fact when his identity was discovered the bank robber sent his wife to the police with a letter that cleared the woman from whatever crime he had commited.

It was stated that by the time of the show the woman lived again in Canada and frecuently received some 'anonymous checks' obviously from his husband.

Sounds like a love story to me, do you remember this case? there was an update?

Didn't they do a show once about Willie Sutton, or a robbery he was suspected of doing?? My memory is a bit fuzzy on this one, obviously. :lol:

I recently watched the UM's 100th episode special, one of the segmets was about a canadian bank robber who married a deaf-mute woman. Apparently, the woman had disappeared from Canada to come to the US following his husband activities. The woman's father was interviewed and he said that he wasn't afraid of the bank robber hurting his daughter but of her being caught in a crossfire with the police.

In fact when his identity was discovered the bank robber sent his wife to the police with a letter that cleared the woman from whatever crime he had commited.

It was stated that by the time of the show the woman lived again in Canada and frecuently received some 'anonymous checks' obviously from his husband.

Sounds like a love story to me, do you remember this case? there was an update?

I don't think it was a lost love story, sounds more like a "I'm in love with a wanted fugitive" case, of which there were a handful on UM and I tend to get them intertwined.

Was this the sweet tooth bandit case? I do remember the case mentioned above, and a bandit who left candy as his calling card, earning him the moniker "sweet tooth bandit", but I'm not sure if these 2 cases are one in the same.

Does anybody know what other segments were on the 100th episode special, and what other specials there were/segments on them? I know about the Live From the Telecenter, Alcatraz, and 3rd Anniversary special, were there any others?

happy birthday, btw.

I recently watched the UM's 100th episode special, one of the segmets was about a canadian bank robber who married a deaf-mute woman. Apparently, the woman had disappeared from Canada to come to the US following his husband activities. The woman's father was interviewed and he said that he wasn't afraid of the bank robber hurting his daughter but of her being caught in a crossfire with the police.

In fact when his identity was discovered the bank robber sent his wife to the police with a letter that cleared the woman from whatever crime he had commited.

It was stated that by the time of the show the woman lived again in Canada and frecuently received some 'anonymous checks' obviously from his husband.

Sounds like a love story to me, do you remember this case? there was an update?

This particular segment was "The Satchel Bandit", and yes he was caught. His name was Charles Warren Boomer, and was found living in a tent in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, despite all the money he made from robbing banks over the years. That was one of my favorite episodes too, and is another fascinating case, which I could watch over and over again.

Steve Hadley

The Masterminds episode on his case is also very good (It details how they caught him and gives more detail on how Hadley pulled off his heist). The Masterminds episode is titled "The Disappearing Man"

Funny thread title, but I have to admit that I LOVE the segment with the Santa Barbara bank robber, the "Crazy Glue" segment. The acting, suspense, and sequences are just solid all around. I especially love the scary part where one teller makes a run for it with a movable cart to make a phone call to the police and she can hear the robber upstairs while the synthesizer belts out. I never get tired of watching this one. Other key moments are the other teller being locked in the vault and the bank manager seeing the robber through the window and rushing to use the payphone. So dated, but so classic.

Funny thread title, but I have to admit that I LOVE the segment with the Santa Barbara bank robber, the "Crazy Glue" segment. The acting, suspense, and sequences are just solid all around. I especially love the scary part where one teller makes a run for it with a movable cart to make a phone call to the police and she can hear the robber upstairs while the synthesizer belts out. I never get tired of watching this one. Other key moments are the other teller being locked in the vault and the bank manager seeing the robber through the window and rushing to use the payphone. So dated, but so classic.

I like that one, too!

I also enjoyed the segment on Steve Hadley, as well as the one about Joseph Daugherty and John Connor.

Someone mentioned the Chevy Chase Bandit at the beginning of the thread. If I had a nickel for every time I've hit rewind to see the part where he falls on the bank floor in slow motion again, I'd probably be a millionaire. Cracks me up every time.

Great bump after 8 years. I recognized it immediately as a SiberianKiss thread. They should all be bumped.