CAMARILLO : Robber May Be Same as in Ventura Heist

A man who robbed the California Federal Bank in Camarillo and escaped in a taxi cab may have been the same person who held up the Bank of America on Victoria Avenue in Ventura on July 3, police said Wednesday.

“The physical descriptions [of the suspect] are very similar,” the FBI’s Larry Dick said.

The suspect in Tuesday’s Camarillo crime is described as a heavy-set white male in his mid-30s. He wore a baseball hat and sunglasses during the robbery, police said.

According to police, the man summoned an Oxnard taxi cab to a Ralph’s grocery store at 820 Arneill Road about noon and asked for a one-block ride to the bank. He robbed the bank of an undisclosed amount of money by passing a note to a teller. He did not display a weapon. He then hopped back into the cab for another one-block ride back to Ralph’s, police said.

The taxi driver was later stopped by sheriff’s deputies, but was not charged in the incident. “He didn’t even know there was a robbery until he was stopped by the deputies and told about it,” Sheriff’s Deputy Jim Wade said.