TCF Bank robber strikes fourth time

FBI

A robber with a preference for TCF Bank.

​There's a robber out there with a preference for TCF Bank.

For the fourth time since January, and the third time in a week, the same lone gunman has walked into a metro area TCF Bank branch, brandished a gun and made off with a pile of cash.

Each time, he was caught on camera.

At about 7 p.m. yesterday, he walked into the the TCF Bank branch at 5205 Central Avenue in Fridley, pulled out a semi-automatic handgun, ordered everyone on the floor, then took cash off three separate tellers before feeling on foot without injuring atone.

FBI

​The FBI describes him as an Asian male, about 5'7" tall with a slight build. He wore light colored pants or jeans, a black zippered and hooded jacket, black shirt, a black mask, and black gloves.

FBI

​They're pretty sure he's the same guy who held up TCF branches in West St. Paul on January 3, in St. Paul on February 28, and in St. Anthony on March 1.

FBI

​Anyone with information about the latest robbery, or the others, is asked to contact the Minneapolis FBI Office at 612-376-3200, the Fridley Police Department at 763/572-3629, or Crime Stoppers at 800/222-8477.

The FBI says this man is Orlando Ray Vasquez.

​The TCF Bank branch in Uptown was the target of a robbery on Feb. 28, but not by the gunman pictured above.

Orlando Ray Vasquez, 40, of Nevada, and Gregory Scott Tyler, 49, were arrested in that heist. The two suspects crashed their stolen getaway car at 24th and Bryant, carjacked a second vehicle at 24th and Colfax before vanishing.

U.S. Marshals caught up with the pair at the Highway Motel on West 7th Street in St. Paul on March 2.

Tyler had cut off a monitoring device and fled from a halfway house two days before the robbery. He'd been in custody for a previous bank robbery of a TCF Bank branch in St. Paul. Vasquez had fled a halfway house in Nevada after being convicted of a previous bank robbery there.