Police arrested a 62-year-old man in connection with three bank robberies in Temecula and Murrieta within an hour.
The man, Sonny Tho Leu, was taken into custody after Murrieta police stopped his vehicle.
The first robbery occurred Tuesday morning at a bank on Margarita Road in Temecula, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office.
When staff arrived at the bank at 11:51 a.m., employees told them a man handed the teller a note demanding money. The teller obliged, and the man left with an undisclosed amount of money.
Bank employees said he was wearing a blue shirt, baseball cap and carrying an orange bag.
The Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that when deputies were interviewing people at the bank, they learned that a person with the same description had just committed two bank robberies in Murrieta “using the same methods.”
At 12:19 p.m., just 28 minutes after officers arrived at the Temecula bank, the Murrieta Police Department received a call reporting an armed robbery at a bank on California Oaks Road.
A bank employee told police that the man, wearing a black baseball cap and carrying an orange bag, handed over a note demanding money and also displayed a gun on his waist.
A teller handed over the money again and the man fled.
At 12:58 p.m., another call came in following a robbery at a bank on Hancock Avenue in Murrieta as police and detectives searched the area for the man.
This time, a bank employee also handed over an undisclosed amount of money, and the man drove away.
Authorities quickly identified the vehicle and shared details over police radio.
Police stopped the car as the suspect pulled into the driveway of a home in Murrieta.
Murrieta police said a search of the vehicle turned up evidence of robbery, and Lew was identified as a suspect in all three robberies.
He was jailed on suspicion of bank robbery and criminal threats.
