Police believe they have caught the serial bank robber nicknamed “Motorcycle
Bandit 2,” who they say is responsible for at least a dozen bank robberies in
central Israel over the past year.
The bank robber was caught around 6
p.m. on Wednesday after he walked into a Mizrahi-Tefahot branch in Ness Ziona,
fired one round in the air and left with a bag of cash. As he was exiting the
bank he was arrested at gunpoint by a group of detectives from the YAMAR
investigative unit and an undercover Border Police unit.
If the man is
indeed the serial bank robber, the arrest would spell a successful end for
police to an investigation code-named “golden egg,” devoted to finding the man
who had become the No. 1 target of Central District Police over the past
year.
In early September, a man was arrested on suspicion of being the
serial bank robber, but police quickly turned their attentions
elsewhere.
There have been several reports that the man arrested
Wednesday is a former Border Police officer, but police have yet to confirm any
details about the his identity.
In August police said they believed that
a serial bank robber was on the loose, after a number of bank heists were
carried out in close succession in the weeks and months prior.
In one of
those robberies, security guard Yariv Engler was shot and killed while trying to
stop the robbery.
Central District Police head Asst.-Ch. Bentzi Sau said
Wednesday night that the arrest brought to an end to “the hunt for a suspect led
by the Central District. This arrest tonight was based on field assessments and
not intelligence, and we built a profile based on the criminal behavior of the
suspect and through professional conduct we were able catch him.”
He
added that at the moment, they would not divulge any details of the identity of
the man arrested on Wednesday.
The last known serial bank robber in
Israel was Rony Leibovitz, nicknamed the “Motorcycle Bandit.” In 1990, he robbed
21 banks on his motorcycle and became something of a national folk hero before
he was apprehended and sent to prison, where he served eight years.
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