FBI offering reward

Tipster can get up to $5,000 for info about Coral Springs credit union robbery

Two armed robbers who wore bad wigs while holding up a Coral Springs credit union have something else on their heads: A reward of up to $5,000 that the FBI offered on Monday.

Surveillance images of the two armed men show them holding up a branch of PriorityONE Credit Union of Florida, at 1700 N. University Drive on Sept. 17.

One man jumps over a counter and heads for a vault or large safe while the other keeps watch over employees.

Before they made off with “bricks” of cash that were tossed into a red canvas-type bag, “they grabbed the female employees of the bank and you see in the video they even dragged them through the lobby across the ground, by their hair,” said Supervisory Special Agent Justin Fleck.

“This could have gone very badly,” Fleck said at the FBI’s South Florida headquarters in Miramar. “We’re very lucky that nobody got hurt.”

He said the robbers’ aggressiveness prompted the reward offer.

“I think when the robbers go hands on with the employees or the patrons of the bank is when the level of violence escalated to the point where the public in general should be outraged by it, and want these people taken off the streets as quick as possible,” Fleck said.

The FBI is hoping the reward will help bring the two men, as well as a suspected getaway driver, into custody.

The heist began when a motorcycle was stolen in Aventura, Fleck said. On the Saturday morning of the robbery, the men rode it together to the credit union.

One of the robbery suspects wore what looked like a woman’s white or blonde wig, a white long-sleeved shirt with pinstripes, white gloves, black pants and white sneakers.

The second man’s face was covered with long black curls that also appeared to be fake hair. He wore a light blue or gray long-sleeved shirt with blue jeans, dark gloves and blue shoes.

After the holdup, the suspects hopped back onto the bike and rode to meet a black, late model Chrysler 300 sedan that was driven by a third person.

“I don’t know if that was a man or a woman,” Fleck said about the getaway driver.

No customers were in the credit union at the time, the robbers’ weapons weren’t fired and no one was seriously hurt, other than being very frightened, Fleck said.

The motorcycle was later recovered near the credit union.

Information about the holdup can be reported to the FBI at 754-703-2000.

Fleck said tips can also be called in to Broward County Crime Stoppers, at 954-493-8477 or at browardcrimestoppers.org. Crime Stoppers accepts anonymous tips and pays rewards of up to $3,000 for information that leads to an arrest.