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The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched a website to help it track down suspects in unsolved bank robberies, including four in the Charlotte region.
The website – https://bankrobbers.fbi.gov – allows people to search for robberies using several criteria, including the location of the crime, the sex of the suspect and whether or not a weapon was used. People also look up serial or non-serial bank robberies. The website then will produce a “Wanted by the FBI” posted with information about the case, including photos and descriptions of suspects.
The FBI said the new website is meant to bolster other agency efforts to tract down people who have robbed federally insured banks, credit unions, savings and loans associations and armored trucks. Officials said thieves took more than $38 million during bank robberies last year, with money recovered in just one of every five cases.
“This website is an operational tool that will help law enforcement identify and prosecute bank robbers more quickly, with the public's help,” Jason DiJoseph, who runs the FBI's bank robbery program, said in a news release. “The idea is to make it easier for the public to recognize and turn in potential suspects and to draw connections between robberies in different cities and states.”
The FBI said the new website highlights the agencies “most pressing” bank robberies. Among the cases featured on the website are three robberies that took place earlier this year in Charlotte, and one from Gastonia.
The most recent local case occurred Sept. 14 at the Carolina Cooperative Federal Credit Union in the 1400 block of East Franklin Blvd. in Gastonia. Authorities say one of two suspects robbed a teller after forcing his way behind a counter at the credit union.
