The FBI and the Orange County Sheriff's Department have issued a special bulletin and $10,000 reward for information leading to a live look at that breakin' and frontin' act taking center stage at local banks, the Pop and Lock Crew.
B-boyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyz!
Check that: being sought for capture is the Pop the Lock Crew.
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The got the name because they use a crowbar or other tools to pop open locked bank teller drawers. They hit a Wells Fargo in Mission Viejo July 13, a Bank of America in Dana Point on July 28 and a Wells Fargo in Ladera Ranch on Thursday.
There are three of them. One waits in a vehicle while his or her partners go into the bank yelling and cursing and demanding customers and employees to hit the floor. One jumps over the counter to open a gate allowing the other to the teller drawers.
They have been described as black men wearing head coverings and athletic clothing. All cars they have used in Orange County have been recovered in Los Angeles County and determined to have been stolen from Carson, El Segundo and Montebello. It is believed in each robbery they have transferred to other vehicles, possibly a gray or silver minivan and/or black Nissan Titan.
Here's a look at a Pop the Lock Crew member in action:
Anyone with information about these fools is asked to contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation-Orange County Sheriff Bank Robbery Apprehension Team at 866.TIP.OCSD or 866.847.6273.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.