Easy Money

"Banks," wrote FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover in a recent warning sent to bankers, "are an almost irresistible attraction for that element of our society which seeks unearned money." Hoover urged that, to resist, banks install armed guards, electronic alarms, tear gas and other protective devices. All these cost money, which banks are reluctant to spend, a fact that makes them even more irresistible.

One morning last week three men accosted a young New York bank clerk as he was leaving his home in New York City's borough of Queens. They ushered him into his Ford at gunpoint and drove with him the 14 blocks to his office, a branch of the Bank of the Manhattan Co. (which had just merged with Chase National to become the nation's second largest bank). They waited on the sidewalk outside. When the manager arrived he was stopped, too. "This isn't funny," he snapped. One of the bandits, flashing a submachine gun, replied: "Brother, I'm not kidding."

At 8:52, with all the bank employes accounted for, the bandits entered, herded eleven people into a 6 by 5 ft. vault, whose inner gate they locked with a chain and padlock foresightedly brought for the purpose. "Thank God they didn't close the vault doors," said one prisoner. The head teller collapsed in a faint and the others kept quiet. "I hugged the wall," said one later. "I wasn't going to get fresh." The hold-up men had eight minutes before opening time, and that was enough. By 9 a.m. the three bandits were quietly driving away with $305,243 in bills, the most money ever taken in a U.S. bank robbery.

The bandits had planned carefully. During the hold-up one said: "We've been casing this joint for six months." They knew the bank employees' names and faces. They also knew that the vaults contained an extra $200,000 that day to meet local payrolls. In every way, the bandits were much better prepared than the Manhattan Co.'s 35 branch banks in Queens, three of which were recently robbed. Until this month, none of the 35 had any armed guards or protective alarms.

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