Arrest of Center City Serial Bank Robber

Special Agents from the FBI’s Philadelphia Division and Philadelphia Police Officers assigned to the FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force arrested Malcolm Wayne Duncan, 52 years of age, yesterday at approximately 3:55 p.m. as he was fleeing the area of the Wachovia Bank branch located at 101 North Independence Mall East, Philadelphia, which he had just robbed.

Duncan was charged today in United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania with one count of bank robbery, and is the suspect in the robberies of the Sovereign Bank at 1500 Market Street on December 21, 2009, and on December 23, 2009; the Beneficial Bank at 16th and Chestnut on December 28, 2009; and the Susquehanna Bank branch located at 1635 Market Street on December 31, 2009.

Special Agents and Philadelphia Police Department Officers assigned to the Violent Crimes Task Force were in the area of 5th and Market Streets yesterday afternoon after receiving information from bank employees in a nearby bank that they had seen a subject in the area of their bank matching the description of the Center City Serial Bank Robber. The Special Agents and Officers observed a subject matching the serial bank robber’s description exit the Wachovia Bank branch at 5th and Market Streets, wearing clothes matching the description of clothes worn in the previous robberies and carrying a black shoulder bag. As the Special Agents and Officers approached this subject, they recognized him and his clothing from the surveillance photos obtained from the four previous robberies, and immediately took him into custody without incident. As they were taking him into custody, they learned over the Philadelphia Police Department radio system that the Wachovia Bank branch had just been robbed. The black bag he was carrying contained United States currency in the amount taken in the robbery of the Wachovia Bank robbery minutes earlier, including two “bait” bills containing recorded serial numbers, and his clothing was identical to that worn by the subject who robbed that bank. Witnesses then positively identified Duncan as the subject who had just robbed the Wachovia Bank branch.