New York's bank robbery rate up 64%

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, January 05, 2004

New York's bank robbery rate up 64%

The New York city's 400th bank robbery of 2003 required no safecracking. No hostage-taking. Not even a drawn gun.

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The New York city's 400th bank robbery of 2003 required no safecracking. No hostage-taking. Not even a drawn gun.

The robber simply walked into an HSBC branch in Manhattan on Tuesday, produced a threatening note demanding money and left with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The unremarkable formula has been the hallmark of a remarkable rise in city bank robberies in 2003: 408 were reported by New Year's Eve, up 64% from 249 in 2002.

The numbers, which include five heists in just over an hour this past week, defied a dip in the city's overall robbery rate and outpaced increases nationwide, exasperating police and bank officials.

The vast majority of stickups-by-note involved robbers working solo. Some were drug addicts desperate for easy cash, who used no more than a baseball cap and sunglasses as disguise.

Their ranks even included women and children. In August, a 12-year-old boy handed a teller a note that read "I have a gun. Give me $30,000," and then made off with cash. Police arrested the boy's mother and the teller, alleging it was an inside job.

The banking industry long ago abandoned armed guards to avoid the risk of gunplay that could threaten customers. Tellers tend to hand over a few thousand dollars rather than risk calling a bandit's bluff.

Under pressure from police, some banks have bolstered security, installing bulletproof glass "bandit barriers" and surveillance cameras.

As the robberies have increased, so have arrests �� 137 through Dec. 28, compared to 64 over the same period last year.

Source: Agencies

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