Countywide : FBI Releases Photos of Bank Robbers

The FBI released surveillance photographs Wednesday of two men wanted in connection with unsolved bank robberies in Ventura County, and asked for the public’s help in identifying them.

One of the photos was taken Jan. 13 when the Thousand Oaks branch of Home Savings of America on Hampshire Road was held up, said Special Agent Gary Auer, who heads the FBI office in Ventura.

The Home Savings robbery was one of just two unsolved bank robberies of the 17 committed this year in Ventura County, Auer said.

The solution rate of nearly 90% is almost identical to last year, when the FBI solved all but 12 of the record 97 bank robberies committed in the county, he said.

The second photo was taken during a May 22 robbery last year at a Wells Fargo Bank branch on Esplanade Drive in Oxnard, the first of four robberies committed at the branch last year.

Neither suspect displayed a weapon during the robberies, and neither is a known suspect in any other bank robberies, something that sets the two suspects apart from the average bank robber, Auer said.

“It’s very unusual,” Auer said. “We don’t often have people who rob just one bank.”

Auer asked that anyone with information about either suspect call the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department or the FBI in Ventura.