PHOENIX — Thieves held a bank manager hostage overnight, then accompanied him to work the following morning and stole $400,000, the FBI said.
Investigators said the three men had attempted such a brazen heist once before with another family but failed. Officials are offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to their arrests in Friday's robbery.
"We anticipate after they blow through this $400,000, they will do it again," FBI Special Agent in Charge John Lewis said.
The FBI believes the robbers followed bank employees to their homes in order to take them hostage in two separate incidents, one that was botched.
The first happened Wednesday night, when the thieves held a couple and their young child hostage in their Chandler home. One of the adults was the manager of the Desert Schools Federal Credit Union.
People are also reading…
Lewis said the plan was scrapped only after the suspects realized they couldn't pull it off.
But on Thursday night, the FBI says the same men held two Chandler residents, one of whom is a bank manager of a Wells Fargo in Tempe. The couple was handcuffed for 12 hours.
The FBI says the men took the manager to his bank the following morning before the branch had opened. When bank workers arrived, the robbers took them hostage as well. They forced them to open the bank vault and eventually made away with about $400,000, escaping in a minivan.
Arizona
