Bank robbery

This refers to robbery of a bank branch or teller, as opposed to other bank-owned property, such as a train, armored car, or (historically) stagecoach.

Law enforcement benefit by being able to respond more quickly, and the odds of catching a bank robber on or near the scene is higher than other types of crime.

Two men, James Honeyman and William J. Murray, entered the City Bank of New York using forged keys.

[12] On September 14, 1828, five men tunneled through a sewage drain in George Street, Sydney and stole approximately £14,000 in promissory notes and coins from the vault of the Bank of Australia.

[12] The crime is detailed in the historical fiction novel, Abel Bodied: Murder at the Malden Bank written by Michael Cloherty.

[17] The heist known as the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery in June 1907 in the Russian Empire resulted in 40 deaths, 50 injuries, and the "expropriation" of 241,000 rubles (approximately 3.96 million 2018 US dollars) by Bolsheviks organized by (among others) Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

[18] Bank robbery is commonly associated with the American Old West due to a few infamous examples and portrayal in fiction.

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in their research, found the scene of the Western bank-robbery to be generally a myth, identifying less than 10 definite bank robberies between 1859 and 1900 across 15 frontier states.

[19] Grunge.com pointed out that FEE's research was conducted before many states and the Library of Congress began publishing historical newspapers online, and while bank robberies in the Old West were still uncommon, there were many more than previously assessed.

[20] On February 13, 1866, several men believed to be members of the James-Younger Gang robbed the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri, shooting to death an innocent street bystander, 17-year-old student George Clifford "Jolly" Wymore, and escaping with $60,000.

[25] On December 21, 1911, two armed men of the Bonnot Gang intercepted a bank messenger outside a branch of Société Générale in Paris.

They stole a satchel of money he was about to deliver to the bank containing roughly five thousand pounds and escaped in a stolen vehicle.

This led to the formation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the designation "Public Enemy" for significant wanted criminals.

In 1957, security cameras installed at St. Clair Savings and Loan in Cleveland recorded the first film footage used to apprehend and identify bank robbers.

The robbery occurred on April 12, when a 24-year-old male pointed a gun at a teller while his accomplice, an 18-year-old female, stuffed over $2,000 into a bag.

This led to an academic interest in a phenomenon soon after referred to as Stockholm syndrome, wherein hostages, during captivity, paradoxically form a sympathetic bond with their captors as a survival strategy.

Ned Kelly (December 1854 – 11 November 1880), Australian bushranger and folk hero, pulled off a series of bank robberies in Victoria and New South Wales.

Herman Lamm (April 19, 1890 – December 16, 1930), The first "modern" bank robber, who developed techniques of surveillance and planning, such as casing and getaway maps, used by many latter stick-up men such as John Dillinger.

In the early 20th century, Willie Sutton (June 30, 1901 – November 2, 1980) was asked why he robbed banks, and he was famously reported as answering: "Because that's where the money is."

[37] Today's biometric technology makes non-violent methods of gaining access, even by the most experienced safe hackers and code crackers, nearly impossible.

Forensic identification techniques have also improved greatly; should a bank robber fire a gun, the police can trace the bullet to the exact firearm using ballistic fingerprinting.

Martin Kemp, in a BBC documentary, once inquired on the effectiveness of an Uzi in a bank robbery, to which the firearms training instructor joked "that would be sixty-four pieces of evidence to convict you."

The sawed-off shotgun, a common robbery weapon in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand where handguns are difficult to obtain, is easily concealable but not particularly effective.

A report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation[38] states that, among Category I serious crimes, the arrest rate for bank robbery in 2001 was second only to that of murder.

Today most organized crime groups tend to make their money by other means, such as extortion, drug trafficking, gambling, prostitution, loan sharking, identity theft, or online scamming and phishing.