Bergen Detectives Charge 'Countdown Bandit' With 10 Bank Robberies

WALLINGTON, N.J. -- A day short of his 23rd birthday, a Hackensack man who authorities dubbed the Countdown Bandit was arrested and charged with 10 counts of bank robbery -- thanks to witnesses who saw the getaway car.

Marcelino Adrian Garcia
Photo Credit: *MUGSHOT: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR*

Rochelle Park police surveillance video of the Feb. 19, 2015 bank robbery.

Photo Credit: cliffviewpilot.com

The first Bergen holdup, in Rochelle Park, on Feb. 19, 2015
Photo Credit: *COURTESY: Rochelle Park Police*

The man the FBI called "The Countdown Bandit."
Photo Credit: *COURTESY: FBI*

Aug. 12, 2015
Photo Credit: *Courtesy: RIVER EDGE PD*

Oct. 23, 2015
Photo Credit: *COURTESY: New Milford PD*

Surveillance image from Hudson City Savings branch in Lyndhurst
Photo Credit: *COURTESY: Lyndhurst PD*

Fleeing the scene of the July 1 Maywood bank robbery.
Photo Credit: *COURTESY: Maywood PD*

An image of the man accused of taking thousands of dollars from a Wayne bank in early March.
Photo Credit: *COURTESY: Wayne PD*

Jerry DeMarco

06/16/2016 5:30 p.m.

Marcelino Adrian Garcia was ordered held on $750,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail.

Detectives arrested Garcia after he made off with an undisclosed amount of cash by passing a note at the Spencer Savings Bank in Wallington around 10:30 a.m. Thursday, acting Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal told Daily Voice.

It was the 10th robbery of banks in Bergen and Passaic that the FBI attributed to him the past 16 months.

Other holdups occurred at banks in Glen Rock, Lyndhurst, Maywood, New Milford, Oradell, River Edge, Rochelle Park and Wayne.

Seven of them were Hudson City Savings (now M&T) branches.

The first holdup attributed to the bandit occurred on Feb. 19, 2015 at the Community Bank of Bergen County in Rochelle Park. In that robbery, a customer got clear cellphone video (see above).

On July 1, he fled with a few hundred dollars from the Community Bank of Bergen County in Maywood.

"This is a robbery. You have ten seconds," he told a Garfield bank teller before making off with $11,000 in cash in late April, police said at the time.

He also announced "This is a robbery" -- and threatened to hurt employees -- before taking $7,000 to $8,000 from an M&T Bank on Route 23 in Wayne in early March.

Two months earlier, he robbed a Hudson City Branch on Kinderkamack Road in Oradell of $8,600.

In early December, the bandit -- wearing a New York Jets cap -- put a bag on the counter of a Hudson City branch in Lyndhurst, "told the teller to fill it," then fled with an undetermined amount of cash, police said.

A month earlier, he made off with $5,000 from a Glen Rock Hudson City branch after pretending to have a gun, authorities said.

The bandit was wearing a painted-on beard when he robbed a Hudson City branch on River Road in New Milford of $4,800 in October.

He was wearing a pink shirt, white twill pants and dark sunglasses when police said he robbed an undetermined amount of cash from a River Edge Hudson City branch on Aug. 12.

The FBI, after connecting the suspect to a string of holdups, dubbed him the Countdown Bandit and offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and capture.

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