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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Feature: March 2008
Easy Money
Banks get offensive with grab-and-go artists
Story by Alan Naditz
It’s a typical day at your downtown bank when a man wearing a baseball cap walks in, strolls up to the counter and hands the teller a note: “This is an armed robbery. Give me your money now.”
The teller, following bank procedure, empties the drawer and shoves the money under the station’s barrier window. The man tucks the cash into his pockets, turns and hurries out the door. He’s never seen again.
Such a robbery occurred last September at a local financial institution. And it happens all the time. Since 2004, Sacramento County has averaged 50 bank robberies a year, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The bureau’s Sacramento division — which covers the Oregon border down to Bakersfield, and from Tahoe to Vallejo — has recorded 640 of these crimes.
It’s not a happy time for banks, according to Douglas Cook, manager of California Bank and Trust’s Broadway branch in Sacramento. “Banks are a target. There’s no two ways about it,” Cook says. “And security here is a very sensitive issue. It’s probably one of the most important things I think about every day in my job.”
Robbery attempts are pretty much unavoidable, according to safety training experts. But they don’t have to be successful. Financial institutions of all sizes are taking steps to ensure that a criminal’s “easy money” isn’t quite that easy to come by.
Financial institutions, however, are reluctant to talk about these steps. Banks and credit unions handle this subject the way sex and pregnancy were addressed on 1950s television: It’s not there — even if it’s obvious. “All banks, regardless of size, are required by law — specifically the Bank Protection Act — to establish minimum standards for securing their banking facilities,” says Jessica Devereaux, security officer at Folsom Lake Bank in Folsom. “It would not be in [a] bank’s best interest to speak about the specific security devices and procedures that are in place.” Ten local financial institutions contacted for this story gave responses similar to Devereaux’s.
“It’s like giving away the keys to the castle,” Cook says. “If I tell you all of our security procedures, then everyone else knows them — including the bad guys.”
Such a reaction isn’t surprising, according to Seattle-based D.J. Nessel, a law enforcement officer and former bank executive, who is now a security training instructor and co-founder of Bank A.P.E., which stands for Awareness Equals Prevention Through Education. “The banking industry hasn’t changed a bit over the years since I worked in it,” Nessel says. “They’re not likely to share information about even bigger issues — fraud and bank robbery, the losses and all that. It’s a pretty closed community.”
Fortunately, the industry isn’t close-minded on what it has to do to cut down on robbery problems, Nessel says. “You’d be surprised how many times over the years we’ve heard banks say everything is fine at their branches,” he says. “Then a few weeks later, they’re calling us up, begging us to get there as soon as possible because there’s been a rash of robberies in the area.”
To Nessel’s dismay, little has changed since he was a bank executive in the ’80s. “Instead of these big, giant policy manuals and procedures that collected dust on a person’s desk, you now have electronic ones,” Nessel says. “Other than that, it’s pretty much the same. Banks are still reactive by nature.”
That’s part of the problem because sometimes criminals know the banks’ policies better than employees, Nessel says. When he and his colleagues at Bank A.P.E. wanted to know why certain institutions were robbed repeatedly while others were left alone, they asked the criminals themselves — convicted bank robbers who were sometimes “all too happy to brag about how easy it was to rip off a bank.”
When it comes to robberies, banks have a “comply and communicate” policy, meaning “Give ’em the money, and let ’em go,” Nessel says. “Get them out of there as fast as you can. Don’t put anybody in jeopardy. The money’s insured.”
Proper employee training is absolutely essential, according to Nessel. Robbery scenarios should be discussed weekly to ensure every employee knows what they should and should not do during such an event. “The last thing you want is for someone to make a mistake and agitate the robber,” Nessel says. “You can turn what we deem a simple note-passing event into one where he wants a fight. And then everyone is in big trouble.”
Bank personnel should also be observant. During Bank A.P.E.’s training sessions, one of the bigger points of discussion focuses on who calls 911 after a robbery — the robbed teller or someone else. Bank industry veterans usually argue that the robbery victim is too shaken to speak to law enforcement. Instead, the employee should be taken aside and consoled in an effort to prevent post-traumatic stress disorder or a similar illness. Nessel says the initial victim is the best person to give an account of the event, along with a description of the robber.
Financial institutions are increasingly using a concierge or greeter, someone who offers a friendly hello to everyone who walks into the bank. According to Nessel, this is one of the best security measures to implement. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be a bank security guard or designated greeter,” he says. “It takes a split second for a teller to look up as a new client comes walking in the lobby and say, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’”
Such an action will draw the attention of other people at the bank. “All of a sudden, you have three or four sets of eyes on you,” Nessel says. “If you’re a bad guy, and you’re trying to figure out which bank you want to rob, do you really think you’re going to stick around in that one?”
Some banks prohibit customers from wearing caps or sunglasses inside, items that can obscure a view of a person’s face. Not all banks like this policy because “they’ve got darned good customers” who might be offended. However, Nessel says, a bank’s good customers never see such a sign. “They’re not there to rob the bank,” he says. “Do you think they’re going to pay attention to a 3-by-5 sign on your door as you come in? They’re only there to make a deposit or get cash. And if they do see it, the reaction is, ‘Oh, anti-
robbery stuff. Makes me feel safer.’”
Bank design is another matter. Washington Mutual has six branches locally that feature the bank’s newer Occasio layout — with tellers who sit at kiosks instead of behind the traditional bulletproof glass, and a separate ATM-like cash machine for withdrawals. Although it wasn’t created specifically to thwart criminals, Occasio turned into a crime deterrent anyway, according to Gary Kishner, the bank’s vice president of national public relations.
“The fact that tellers don’t handle cash — in terms of dispensing it — does create a security benefit for us,” Kishner says. “But any security benefits are a byproduct of that design.”
There are other subtle, security-enhancing design elements that customers see every time they walk into a bank but probably don’t notice. But criminals sure will, if the design is set up correctly, according to Nessel. These include the rope-laden aisles leading up to teller windows, the positioning of signage on the floor and the way desks are laid out inside the bank.
Robbers will typically come to a bank beforehand to checkout the layout and see if it’s exit-friendly, according to Nessel. “They want to know if there’s anything stopping them from walking up to the window, doling out their robbery note and getting out of there as quickly as possible,” he says. “We teach things like placement of physical barriers, such as ropes, signs and plants, that can create an obstacle course for the robber to have to dodge or go around — without blocking anyone’s line of sight inside the bank.”
The end result can be discouraging for the would-be robber. “They make a demerit list in their mind, saying, ‘I don’t like this, I don’t like that,’” Nessel says. “In the end, it becomes, ‘You know something? There are five other branches out there. Maybe I’ll try one of those.’”
Other security efforts include improved communication efforts with law enforcement, according to Marcus Knutson, special agent and bank robbery coordinator at the FBI’s Sacramento office.
The FBI gives colorful nicknames to bank robbers to stimulate public interest and help put the criminals behind bars. “So when a guy walks in looking like the Skunk Bandit [wearing an all-black outfit with a white tie], they start hitting the alarm,” Knutson says.
In the past year, bandits with monikers such as X-Games, Grandpa and Spiderman — responsible for 15 robberies combined around Sacramento and Placer counties — were nabbed partly because of increased public awareness, according to Knutson.
There are also the old standbys, some of which have received technological upgrades and made law enforcement’s work easier, according to Knutson. These include replacing older VHS surveillance equipment with new digital cameras, giving sharper, color images instead of the grainy black-and-white shots bank officials and law enforcement had to decipher. Explosive dye packs and traceable bait money are still standard. As are the old-fashioned — but still effective — bank security guards.
Financial institutions and the FBI also offer reward programs. Sacramento’s mainstay is Crime Alert at crimealert.org, but some banks have their own programs where cash rewards are paid to callers who provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of bank robbers. When properly advertised, these programs subtly suggest to employees and customers that financial institutions care about their safety and security, writes Wells Fargo Bank Chief Security Officer Bill Wipprecht at bankersonline.com. His advice to financial institutions: Don’t be cheap.
A $5,000 reward or more “is not too much to pay to take a robber off the street who risks the lives of your employees and customers.”
Secure the perimeter
by Ashley M. Wilborn
Automated teller machines have been used in the U.S. since they were introduced at a Chemical Bank in Long Island, N.Y., in 1969. As of 2005, there were nearly 400,000 ATMs in the U.S., which handled 10.5 billion transactions that year, according to the American Bankers Association. More than 20 percent of customers say they prefer ATM banking over traditional in-store, drive-through or online methods, according to a Gallup/American Banker poll in 2004. Here are some tips from the Elk Grove Police Department on staying safe at the ATM.
1. Get deposit envelopes from the teller and keep them at home, in your car or office. Prepare the paperwork before you drop off deposits to minimize your time at the machine.
2. Choose a location monitored or patrolled by a security guard.
3. Don’t select an ATM at the corner of a building, which creates a blind area close to the transaction.
4. For your most-frequented ATM, request crime statistics from the police precinct responsible for the area. Call the nonemergency hotline and ask for crime records.
5. Find a station with the most natural surveillance and visibility. The ATM location should not have any sight barriers such as shrubbery, landscaping, signs or dividers. Clear visibility increases the potential for witnesses. Also, avoid ATMs with large parking lots and many pathways leading to and from the site.
6. Select an ATM with a wide-angle transaction camera or a continuous transaction surveillance camera. Your bank can give you this information. Some locations add a mirror above your head, so you can also watch your back.
7. Remove any jewelry or items that are or look expensive before approaching the machine.
8. Be aware of anyone sitting in a vehicle near the machine.
9. If your card gets stuck and someone quickly approaches to offer help, don’t leave your card. Ask that person to go inside and notify a banker. If the bank is closed and you are alone, get in your car and call the company’s 800 number.
10. If you suspect you are being followed from an ATM, drive to a police precinct and don’t get out of the car. Flash your lights, honk your horn and call 911 to give officers your exact location.
