Dirty Dozen Sought

A suspect, who committed seven bank thefts from 1984, found this out last week when he was arrested at Lester B. Pearson International Airport disembarking a flight from Greece.

He’s currently in custody.

“The crime doesn’t go away,” S/Insp. Mike Earl of the Hold Up Squad reminded 12 other bank robbers – dubbed ‘The Dirty Dozen’ – whom are wanted for robberies across the Greater Toronto Area. “There is no statute of limitations. With DNA, better fingerprinting and more forensics, we can actually apprehend people, not just in robberies, but in violent crimes going back decades. We are not going to stop looking for those individuals.”

‘The Dirty Dozen’ includes ‘The Chubby Bandit’, who robbed a bank on Lawrence Ave. E. on November 28, 2006 and ‘The North-South Bandit’ who brandished a gun while committing three robberies.

“We are looking for that phone call to try to solve these robberies,” Earl said at a press conference at police headquarters on Dec. 10 appealing to the public to help identify the men in the surveillance images. “It’s not only important that we arrest these individuals but we want to prevent further robberies by keeping these individuals off the street.”

The Canadian Bankers Association (CBA), which represents 57 Canadian banks and nearly 275,000 employees, has pledged to top-up the Crime Stoppers payout by 50 per cent for information leading to the arrest of those on ‘The Dirty Dozen’ list.

“If you do a robbery, we will not give up,” said CBA security director Bill Crate. “Robbery is a predatory and personal crime. Its unpredictability is what makes it so dangerous.”

He said there has been a 50 per cent reduction in bank robberies across the country in the last decade.

“Much of that is due to the good work of the Toronto Police Hold Up Squad,” Crate said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Hold-Up Squad at 416−808−7350, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416−222−TIPS (8477), online at HYPERLINK "http://www.222tips.com" www.222tips.com, text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637), or Leave A Tip on Facebook.