A man who went to the effort of robbing six New York banks in five days made off with a grand total of just $605.
Gustavo DeJesus Torres, 33, began his disappointing crime spree late last week, when he walked into a branch of Chase and handed the teller a note stating that people would get hurt if they did not hand over money. The note did not suggest that Torres was armed.
Just an hour later, he tried the same stunt again at another New York City Chase branch, and the following day, he used the same technique twice more, again at Chase branches.
After having two days off, he targeted two more of the financial giant’s locations.
During two of his attempts, Torres’ technique was mildly fruitful, leaving the premises with $320 from a branch in Jackson Heights, Queens, and $265 from a branch on Nostrand Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn, over the weekend.
During his robbery of a bank on West 125th Street in Harlem on Tuesday, he emerged from the premises with $20, the police said.
Meanwhile, in three of his other heist attempts, his audacious method failed to yield any results. According to the NYPD, “the individual did not obtain any money and fled on foot to parts unknown,” The New York Times reports.
Police are now on the hunt for Torres, and have released several security-camera photographs of him.
One of the images shows him on the subway platform holding a cup of coffee, with his headphones dangling round his neck, with an expression of low-key despair common among commuters – yet the image was taken during the 57-minute interval between an unsuccessful robbery of one bank, and before the relative triumph of taking $265 from the Nostrand Avenue branch of Chase.
Records also suggest he may have honed his low-key bank robbery techniques in the past, as a 2021 news report reveals a man with the same name, then aged 29, was arrested by police at his Newark, New Jersey, home after he had robbed a branch of Chase bank, reportedly handing the teller a note which read: “I’m heavily armed don’t make a scene.”
During this incident, the suspect walked off with $6,000, which was never recovered, but Torres was charged with first-degree robbery. It is unclear what happened following this charge.
He is also believed to have robbed a bank to the tune of $600 last year, according to the Times.
