Good customer service didn’t pay off for workers at the First Chicago bank branch in Algonquin.
When they let a customer in the door five minutes before the 9 a.m. opening Wednesday, he promptly announced he was robbing the bank, FBI spokesman Bob Long said.
The man walked away with an unspecified amount of cash in the second bank robbery in McHenry County in less than a week.
The suspect is described as a white male, 6 feet 1 inch tall, with a thin build, about 25 years old, with sandy-blond, wavy hair.
According to the FBI, he first came to the door at 8:30 a.m., but bank workers turned him away. He then returned a few minutes before 9 a.m., and the employees let him in the door.
The man walked directly to a teller’s window and gave the teller a demand note. But according to the FBI, he then pulled the note away from the teller and said: “This is a robbery; put the money in this bag.”
The bank at 1350 E. Algonquin Rd. was closed until 1:30 p.m. as federal, state and local law-enforcement agents scoured the small branch building for evidence. A Lake in the Hills police canine unit searched the area to try to get the man’s scent or check for anything he may have left behind. The dog wasn’t able to come up with anything.
“There was a fair amount of people running around here, so that made it difficult,” Officer David DeMarais said.
Algonquin police were working on getting a still image from the video surveillance camera. The man was seen walking into an adjacent parking lot, but authorities couldn’t tell if he left the area on foot or by auto. No weapon was displayed.
Authorities didn’t release the amount taken in Wednesday’s robbery, but bank robbers generally garner only a few thousand dollars from a teller station.
Meanwhile, Crystal Lake police are still looking for two men involved in a robbery of the Firstar Bank branch at 350 First Colonial Drive Friday morning. A man walked into the bank, handed the teller a note demanding money and walked out with $2,000. The man fled in a black Dodge Dakota pickup truck with red stripes driven by another man, authorities said.
Deputy Chief Howard Parth said Crystal Lake police were working on several leads from calls by the public.
“A lot of times it is that one additional bit of information from the public that allows us to put the puzzle together,” Parth said.
The robberies had some similarities: a lone man walking into a bank and displaying a note without a visible weapon. But FBI spokesman Long said agents don’t believe there is a connection.
Bank robberies were actually down last year from 1996 in the Chicago area. There were a record 183 bank robberies in 1996, but last year, the number dropped to 125, according to FBI statistics. Long said that until a spate of bank robberies this month, the numbers were down again.
“It’s very hard to say what the connection is,” Long said. “The economy can just be going gangbusters, and so can bank robberies at the same time. There’s not much logic to it. These aren’t bright people.”
