Midwest Bank Robbers
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The MidWest Bank Robbers is the name given to a criminal group active in the United States in the early 1990s. The group is alleged to have associated with convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in the months before the Oklahoma City bombing.
In February 2004, FBI announced they would revisit the Oklahoma City bombing case after learning investigators working to solve bank robberies attributed to the MidWest Bank Robbers had found blasting caps the same as those McVeigh allegedly stole from a quarry to use in the April 19 attack. Investigators also found the driver's license of Roger Moore, an Arkansas gun dealer who was robbed before the attack. Prosecutors in the Oklahoma City bombing case alleged the robbery had funded the bombing.
In the months before the bombing, a Georgia sheriff released one of the bank robbers to the custody of the Secret Service. The sheriff said the Secret Service were seeking the man's help in another investigation involving Michael William Brescia, one the Midwest Bank Robbers with elite military experience. The informant eluded his handlers and allegedly joined the gang. Investigators tracked the gang to Elohim City (an Aryan Nations base rather than a city) in early 1993 at a time when McVeigh was also known to be in the area. An Arkansas highway patrolman ticketed McVeigh for speeding only miles from Elohim City at a time when the gang of bank robbers were also there. McVeigh made several telephone calls to Elohim City before the bombing, telephone records showed.
An ATF informer, Carolyn Howe, told reporters after the bombing she had been at Elohim City before the bombing and while there she heard talk of a planned bombing.
Together with Brescia, Mark William Thomas, Richard Lee Guthrie Jr., Peter Kevin Langan, Kevin McCarthy, and Scott Stedeford were indicted in the robbery spree on January 30, 1997. Brescia, McCarthy, Guthrie and Thomas pleaded guilty and co-operated with authorities. Stedeford and Langan were convicted but faced further charges. Guthrie later hanged himself in prison. The robbers often made false bomb threats at other locations to distract police when they planned a robbery. Brescia admitted to being occasionally armed with a pipe bomb or similar devices during the robberies, and to setting off smoke bombs to cover the robbers' getaway.
Langan and Guthrie allegedly robbed at least 18 banks during a two year period before Langan was arrested following a shootout with police in Columbus, Ohio in January 1996. A search of storage lockers and places the pair had visited turned up promotional and recruiting material for the Aryan Republican Army. More than $250,000 in robbery proceeds were never recovered. The FBI investigated at the time whether the money had been used to fund violent right-wing activities.
Mark Thomas now claims to have renounced his Aryan supremacy beliefs.
External links
- Philadelphia Inquirer report of trials (http://www.web.apc.org/~ara/documents/news/bank.html)