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Hearing sirens, members of the Whippany Fire Company on Route 10 looked toward the PNC Bank branch up the road and saw two men running toward a waiting car. They immediately radioed Hanover police with a description of the men and the car — including its full license plate number.
“It turns out the car was previously seen at another robbery,” one FBI agent said. “The firefighters figured these two guys weren’t out jogging.”
Moments later, authorities found the green Acura in a wooded area nearby. The robbers had bolted into the woods instead of driving off, their short path to Route 287 blocked off by police.
It didn’t take long for officers to find 20-year-old Juan Perez of Clifton, who they said was carrying some of the money, in the woods. A canine unit was brought in to flush out his partner, the FBI said.
Two hours later, the dogs sniffed out Nathaniel Barreto, a 28-year-old Newark man who became known as “the Black Stocking Robber” after knocking over a half-dozen banks in Paramus, Boonton and elsewhere from North to Central Jersey, federal authorities said.
Baretto — who amazingly was out on bail after being arrested in April in connection with another holdup — went into the PNC Bank branch at 2:15 Tuesday afternoon wearing a black stocking mask, with matching clothing and gloves, while carrying “a plastic bag in one hand and a black handgun in the other….,” a complaint filed in Newark says.
After walking out with several thousand dollars in cash, it says, he ditched the gun and some cash somewhere off the highway before running toward the Acura.
That’s when the firefighters stepped up.
“It made the difference,” said an FBI veteran with experience investigating bank robberies.
Officials at the Whippany company didn’t return a call for comment Wednesday, although one firefighter there proudly said: “That was us.”
“What people don’t realize is that the teller ‘button’ in the bank goes to the security company, not to the police,” the veteran investigator said. “That‘s where the public can actually play a role. Even if someone hit 911 and dropped the phone on the floor, an operator could tell where that call came from.”
The FBI keeps extensive data on all bank robberies in the state that local police can tap at a moment’s notice.
“So if a witness says a green Honda just sped down my road at 50 miles an hour, they know they’ve got something,” the agent said. “The community can then become members of the team.
“That’s how you get captures like this one.”
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? The FBI is tracking another serial bank robber and is hoping the public can help.
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