PORTLAND, Ore. -- An association of Oregon financial institutions has offered $5,000 for information leading to the arrest of an armed porn store and bank robber dubbed the “Fantasia Bandit” by the FBI.
The Fantasia Bandit may be responsible for as many as nine robberies since late September, including two holdups of the Fantasy for Adults Only store on W. Burnside, according to FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele.
Most recently, the Fantasia Bandit allegedly threatened to kill a bank teller on Halloween at the Hollywood Wells Fargo branch located at NE 42nd Ave. and Sandy Blvd., Steele said.
The bandit also hit a Wells Fargo on N. Denver St. one week earlier. Four other bank robberies, including US Bank, Key Bank, Bank of the West and NW Resource Federal Credit Union – and a video poker deli heist were all credited to Fantasia.
Here is the suspect on a surveillance video.
Fantasia was described by witnesses as a white, slightly overweight man of average height. He was thought to be somewhere between 35 and 45 years old.
Fantasia always wears a baseball hat and once wore a sweatshirt adorned with "CCCP." The acronym stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the former Soviet Union, in the Cyrillic alphabet.
The $5,000 bounty comes after Crime Stoppers offered $1,000 for the Fantasia Bandit's arrest. All tips are anonymous, according to authorities.
Federal and state police caught another headline-grabbing robber, the so-called River Rat Bandit, after a four-month crime spree stretching from Portland to Spokane. The River Rat also had garnered a bounty from the Oregon Financial Institutions Security Task Force, or FIST.
Anyone with info on the Fantasia Bandit or any of the recent robberies was asked to contact the FBI or Portland Police.
