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A QUESTION FOR BANK ROBBERS
It Is Worth It?
11/21/08
The old saying goes, “Don’t do the crime unless you can do the time.” North Texas bank robbers are learning just what that means.
Statistics show that the number of bank robberies has increased over the last few years in North Texas, but so has the number of bank robbery arrests and convictions. Just ask the “Toboggan Bandit” or the “East Texas Takeover Bandits” if robbing a bank was worth the time they will spend in prison.
Or ask the “Grand Prairie Bandits.” This “take-over” crew of armed bank robbers would enter each of their targeted banks and threaten bank employees and customers with death if they did not comply with their demands. They then assaulted the bank tellers at gunpoint and demanded the cash that was under their control. Although the “Grand Prairie Bandits” were able to commit a few robberies, they, like their predecessors, were arrested and stood trial.
Jason Montes and Margarito Armijo, two of the “Grand Prairie Bandits,” were convicted of conspiracy to commit bank robbery, using/carrying and brandishing a firearm during or in relation to a crime of violence and bank robbery following a weeklong trial in April 2008. In September 2008, Montes was sentenced to 396 years and Armijo 391 years in federal prison. A third “Grand Prairie Bandit”, Luis Favila, pled guilty to nine counts of bank robbery in September 2007 and was sentenced to 42 years in prison.
Hopefully, after hearing these stories, future bank robbers will ask themselves: is it worth it?
You can help: Visit our multi-agency website devoted to catching bank robbers in Texas—BanditTracker.com—and see if you recognize any of the suspects.
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