Police are searching for a serial thief who has been spotted holding up banks throughout Manhattan while wearing a wide variety of sartorially-inventive headgear.
The thief has been caught on security video wearing sunglasses along with a beanie, bike helmet, fedora, and baseball cap as he demanded money from bank tellers in Murray Hill, the Upper East Side, and the West Village. Occasionally the thief would suggest that he was armed with a weapon and successfully escaped with stolen cash in six of seven attempts.
The fashionista bandit last seen robbing the H.S.B.C. Bank at 45 East 89th Street shortly before 3 p.m. last Friday, when he made off with an undisclosed amount of cash. The NYPD suspects him of beginning his crime spree on March 8th with the robbery of a Murray Hill Santander Bank (during which he worse sunglasses, a scarf, and beanie cap), then donning a bike helmet to rob another Santander on 3rd Avenue and 44th Street on May 12th.
On May 27th, the thief attempted to rob the same Murray Hill Santander, and passed a note demanding cash to the teller, a 57-year-old woman. However, when the bank employee proceeded to the back of the bank and called 911 the man fled empty-handed.
Between May 31st and June 24th, the thief robbed three HSBC banks across the West Village and Upper West Side. Police are currently seeking the sharp-dressed man and an investigation is ongoing.
Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577.
