Traffic Stop Nets Bank Holdup Suspects

A routine traffic stop in Whittier over the weekend led to the recovery of $15,000 in stolen money and the arrest of four people now under investigation for a series of Southland bank robberies, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman said Sunday.

Sheriff’s deputies who stopped a car for expired registration tags Saturday at 10 p.m. discovered that one of the passengers was carrying a cache of marijuana and $2,000 wrapped in paper bands stamped “Standard Savings Bank,” Deputy Rich Erickson said.

The deputies then searched the car’s other occupants and found another $13,000, all wrapped in bank bands, Erickson said.

Detectives believe some of the money may be from an armed robbery of the Standard Savings Bank in Hacienda Heights on Friday, he said. They are also investigating whether the four suspects might be responsible for a bank robbery in Santa Fe Springs and two in Alhambra.

“They might match the descriptions of the bank robbers” in those cases, Erickson said.

Suspects Daniel Moreno, 21, of Alhambra and Elizabeth Moreno, 23, of Torrance, were booked on suspicion of robbery and remain at the sheriff’s Norwalk station in lieu of $50,000 bail. Two male juveniles, one from Santa Fe Springs and one from Commerce, are being held without bail, Erickson said.