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Video Transcript

Mollie Halpern: A new mobile app for smartphones makes it easy for the public to help the FBI identify and catch the most violent and prolific serial bank robbers.

The FBI’s Bank Robbers mobile app gives users access to surveillance photos of suspects, as well as dates and other information about bank robberies.

Users can also receive alerts when a bank robbery has happened near them.

Gregory Adams: You can keep an idea of what’s going on in your community because you can look at it geographically. If there is someone or some bank has been robbed, who knows, next time you’re at the gas station, you may see the guy.

Halpern: That was Gregory Adams, the chief of the Violent Crimes Unit, which coordinates the FBI’s bank robbery investigations across the country.

There were more than 4,000 crimes committed under the federal bank robbery statute in 2015.

Adams: A bank robber… they are very violent. Some are armed. Not only do you have the danger to the employee, of the bank, but the private citizen.

Halpern: The app provides the public with ways to quickly contact the FBI to report tips.

The app can be downloaded for free from Apple’s App Store or Google Play. With FBI, This Week I’m Mollie Halpern of the Bureau.