Three robbers wearing Scream-style Halloween masks made off with more than $300,000 in cash after a brazen armored truck heist at a Holmesburg bank last Thursday.
The special agent-in-charge of the Philadelphia FBI, Edward Hanko, described the crime as “obviously a well-planned robbery” when speaking to news reporters outside the Wells Fargo at Frankford Avenue and Rhawn Street.
Surveillance video broadcast by CBS-3 showed that the crooks spent just three minutes in the parking lot of the bank. At 9:32 a.m., they pulled into the lot inside a green Plymouth minivan. The Garda armored truck arrived two minutes later with two uniformed guards on board. Investigators believe that two of the crooks approached one of the guards from behind as he unloaded cash from the truck and placed it on a hand truck for delivery into the bank. The robbers wore ghostface masks similar to those worn by the killers in the popular slasher movie series Scream. They carried TEC-9 style semiautomatic handguns.
The bandits knocked the guard to the ground, grabbed the cash and returned to their minivan, where the third accomplice was waiting as the getaway driver. Surveillance video showed the minivan exiting the lot at 9:35 a.m. The armored truck guards were not injured.
Police found the unoccupied minivan a short time later on the 3400 block of Arthur St., about six blocks from the bank near the James Ramp Recreation Center. It had been reported stolen in Upper Darby in August.
A witness told CBS-3 that she saw the robbers abandon the van and get into in a second getaway vehicle, possibly a Pontiac Bonneville. Investigators later found that vehicle unoccupied at an undisclosed location. A fourth accomplice reportedly may have assisted in the escape. ••
