York and Peel Police have upped the reward to $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of 'The Vaulter' - the man who they call Canada's most notorious bank robber.
The mysterious criminal known as the Vaulter Bandit is back in the news and, even by his own brazen standards, his last job was daring.
It had been a year since the man, who is alleged by police to be Canada's most notorious bank robber, had last struck.
But a week ago, shortly after 7 a.m. on May 8, the Vaulter appeared outside a TD Canada Trust bank branch on a strip-mall stretch of Dundas Street East in Mississauga.
Disguised as a construction worker, with an orange safety shirt and a hard hat, he approached a security guard outside the bank and started chatting while he waited for employees to open the branch.
Then he went inside, pulled out a handgun, locked the three staff members into the vault and made off with cash.
"Have a nice Mother's Day," he told the employees before leaving.
"He'd obviously done some homework because his appearance blended in with two construction crews that were doing work in the area," said Detective Sergeant Don Ross of the Peel Regional Police Hold-Up Unit.
Det. Sgt. Ross made details of the robbery public Friday as the Canadian Bankers Association announced it had raised to $100,000 the reward for tips leading to the capture of the Vaulter.
Rewards for the Vaulter have gradually increased from $10,000 in 2010, to $20,000 the following year, to $50,000 last year.
Like the heist last week in Mississauga, his previous stickup, on May 5, 2014, at another TD Canada Trust branch, in the Don Mills area, was a takeover-style affair where he confronted employees at gunpoint and forced them into a vault.
However, the Vaulter got his moniker because, during his initial robberies, he would jump onto the counter to grab money from the teller.
"He's in relatively good shape. He can vault over the counter with ease. He's very flexible." Toronto Police Staff Inspector Mike Earl noted last year.
The Vaulter's modus operandi will remind crime-story aficionados of the exploits of one of Canada's most famous stickup artists, Toronto's Edwin Alonzo Boyd, who was also known for leaping over counters during his bank-robbing days, from 1949 to 1952.
It is not just the Vaulter's technique that is old-fashioned. Robbing banks is no longer a common crime – because financial institutions now carry less cash. People increasing rely on payment cards and companies deposit wages directly into their employees' accounts.
The large stickup crews of the past have been replaced by lone operators or junkies looking for quick cash.
The Vaulter is the suspect in 19 bank heists in the last five years, mostly in the Greater Toronto Area but also in Hamilton, Ottawa and Calgary.
His crime spree started in the Markham area in February 2010.
Sometimes he had to leave empty-handed. For example, in December 2011, he targeted a TD Canada Trust branch in Vaughan but fled after a female employee kicked him in the groin.
Investigators gave him his catchy nickname, a common technique to help catch the public's attention.
Each time, he struck in the morning and operated without masking his face.
He is believed to be operating alone because he has been seen with a police radio scanner, indicating he doesn't have an accomplice to monitor the police airwaves, said Detective Sergeant Mike Fleischaker of the York Regional Police Hold-Up Unit.
The Vaulter was also seen boarding his getaway car on the driver's side.
In their efforts to track him, investigators have identified over 100 persons of interests and have tried geographic profiling and face-recognition software.
He left the scene of his last robbery, in Mississauga, in a grey or silver Chevrolet Cruze.
Police consider the Vaulter armed and dangerous. He is a white male with grey hair and an athletic build. He is between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-10, and weighs between 170 and 190 pounds.
Tu Thanh Ha