A Colorful Lineup of Serial Bank Robbers : Crime: Officials attribute flurry of heists to a small group of bandits, each nicknamed for a defining characteristic.

SANTA ANA — The paunchy robber vanishes for months on end, but when he hits a bank his line is always the same.

“Gimme the money, and make it snappy,” he tells the tellers.

FBI agents have dubbed the bandit “Snappy,” and he is one of a lineup of serial bank robbers who are plaguing Orange County and whose mug shots grace the walls of the bureau’s Santa Ana office.

Snappy is suspected of holding up three Orange County Great Western bank branches Dec. 8. The FBI says the middle-aged man also hit five banks in San Diego County the previous day and is a suspect in at least seven other Orange County stickups over the past two years.

While bank robberies in Orange County and all over Southern California have dropped sharply over the past few years, recent weeks have seen a flurry of heists that FBI officials attribute to the same small group of robbers.

“It’s very uncommon to have a bank robber do one robbery and then drop off the face of the earth,” said Joseph T. White, an FBI special agent in Santa Ana who investigates bank robberies.

Many of the robbers, like Snappy, are repeat offenders.

There’s “Wally Walrus,” who is a suspect in three heists since September and whose drooping mustache earned him his moniker. There’s the “San Juan Surfer,” a laid-back robber who honed his techniques on three South County banks before expanding northward and hitting Huntington Beach branches four times.

There’s also “The Penguin,” a twenty-something bandit whose trademark Pittsburgh Penguins cap recently sent a nostalgic Pennsylvania-born bank teller on a trip down memory lane before she was sobered by his holdup note. He’s a suspect in three Fountain Valley robberies.

Bank robbers hit six times in Orange County Dec. 4-8 and three times last week, including Thursday, when a man donned an orange jumpsuit and matching hard hat and held up a Fidelity Federal Bank in Huntington Beach, police said.

Since October, the city’s bank heists have numbered 14, Huntington Beach Police Sgt. Ron Burgess said. One branch was hit two days in a row this month.

“There’s a flurry of them going on right now,” said Burgess, who supervises the department’s two bank robbery detectives and was near-incredulous when the man in the orange jumpsuit struck Thursday. “We just shook our heads about it at lunch when [it] happened.”

Investigators attribute the flurry of heists in part to the sheer number of Huntington Beach bank branches with convenient getaway access. “What they do is jump on the freeway and they’re gone,” Burgess said.

But the recent flurry is not reflective of general bank robbery trends, White said.

There were 205 bank robberies in the county in the 1994 federal budget year. There were 152 heists during the 1995 budget year, which ended Sept. 30.

Since Oct. 1, 38 Orange County banks have been robbed, and 10 of those cases have been solved, White said.

The FBI solves about 80% of bank holdups with the help of local police and residents who recognize the robbers on bank posters, White said. On Thursday, a tip from someone who saw a wanted poster led agents to a man they believe is the so-called “Baby Face Bandit.” He was arrested on suspicion of robbing banks in Yorba Linda and Anaheim.

There’s been no dip in what agents call takeover robberies--violent heists in which armed robbers commandeer a bank lobby, order customers and clerks to the floor and often demand access to the bank’s vault and automated teller machines, White said.

Almost all takeover suspects in Orange County have been traced to Los Angeles-area gangs, White said. While the overall number of heists decreased, takeovers remained at the same level--18 during both the 1994 and 1995 budget years.

The most recent such robbery occurred in Buena Park on Dec. 7, when three young men burst into a Bank of America in the 8900 block of Knott Avenue and ordered everyone down on the floor. Two bank clerks were pistol-whipped and beaten so severely they were hospitalized, investigators said. A 19-year-old man is in custody and investigators said they are confident they will soon arrest two more suspects.

The vast majority of bank robbers, however, are lone repeat offenders who quietly approach a single teller and demand money, often threatening violence but seldom showing a weapon.

Many have a regular spiel, White said, and seem to believe trusty habits breed continued success.

Quite a few are heroin addicts in need of fast cash, investigators said. And increasingly, the county has seen serial robbers pop in from out of state for a spree, then leave.

Snappy may be one of those, White said. The 180-pound man is about 45 to 50 years old and 5-foot-10. He used to sport a fishing hat, but lately he has worn a baseball cap and sunglasses and carried a soft, black case for his loot.

Initially, agents dubbed Snappy “Bait First” because he always insisted the tellers “give me the bait money first.” But that habit died, so agents changed his nickname.

“Maybe he had a dye pack blow up on him,” said FBI spokesman Gary Morley.

Another serial bank robber is so new on the Orange County scene, he has no nickname yet.

Known to the FBI’s bank robbery team only as “#192150,” the man is suspected of making off with more than $7,000 from a Huntington Beach Citibank after handing the teller a nearly illegible note demanding money last Tuesday.

No-Name also hit a Fountain Valley bank Dec. 8--the same day Snappy struck three other banks.

“To have four in one day,” White said, “that’s a lot of robberies.”

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Money for Nothing

Several serial bank robbers have descended on Orange County, and FBI agents have pegged them with a set of nicknames. Here’s a gallery of some of the most wanted robbers:

Snappy:

Wanted for at least 10 Orange County bank heists since 1993. Known for his one-liner to tellers: “Gimme the money, and make it snappy.”

Wally Walrus:

Wanted for three Orange County bank heists since September. Has a bushy mustache that droops beyond the corners of his mouth and a tattoo on the back of his head.

The San Juan Surfer:

Wanted for seven bank robberies since August, the first three in South County. Has a laid-back gait and often wears his trademark baseball cap backward.

The Penguin:

The clean-shaven young man is suspected of robbing three Fountain Valley bank branches in August and September. Earned his name from his Pittsburgh Penguins cap.

No Name Yet:

The county’s most recent suspected serial bank robber. The man with a light brown mustache is suspected of hitting a Fountain Valley bank Dec. 8 and a Huntington Beach branch Tuesday.

Source: FBI

Researched by LEE ROMNEY / Los Angeles Times