The “faceless bandit” as seen in the Torrance hold up. Photo courtesy of the FBI.
Two weeks after a masked gunman known as “the faceless bandit” held up banks in Laguna Beach and Seal Beach, a 36-year-old state prison parolee suspected in the heists was arrested by Ventura police, authorities said Tuesday, Nov. 15.
Kyle Jason Korte, 36, of Beverly Hills, was re-arrested on Thursday, Nov. 10, as a result of a traffic stop and made a U.S. District Court appearance in Orange County, where he was held without bail, says a statement by the FBI.
A complaint charges Korte with bank robbery and armed bank robbery in a four-heist spree that included stick-ups in Playa Vista and Torrance earlier last month, Deirdre L. Fike, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, announced.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies had arrested Korte in January 2014 for suspicion of a Rolling Hills Estates bank robbery.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Moffitt, involved in Korte’s previous arrest, saw similarities in surveillance video from the recent stick-ups and contacted investigators, FBI Special Agent Christopher Gicking says in the sworn complaint filed the day before Korte’s arrest. Investigators learned Korte had been released from custody in August and was currently on parole, Gicking says in the complaint.
Laguna Beach aided the investigation by providing video from the city’s surveillance cameras of the suspect fleeing after the Oct. 27 robbery of the Union Bank branch at 229 Broadway Street, Sgt. Tim Kleiser said.
The video shows a person matching the robber’s description head for a parking lot and then a white Toyota Prius driving from the area at high speed, the criminal complaint says. Footage picked up a license plate registered to a Beverly Hills address, the complaint says.
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