Bank Robberies Were Down in 2011, but Climbing This Year

A regional law enforcement task force reported Wednesday that bank robberies in the Southland in 2011 were at the lowest level since the FBI started keeping such statistics about four decades ago.

The FBI, which investigates bank robberies jointly with local police and sheriff's departments, said there were 287 bank robberies in the seven counties of Southern California in 2011, with 67 of those heists in Orange County, the second-highest in the region.

Los Angeles County had the highest number of bank robberies in the region last year -- 122, according to the report.

Related: Union Bank robbed Wednesday in Corona del Mar

Watch: Bank Robbery in Process

The FBI's Laura Miller said one has to go back to the early 1970s, when such record-keeping began, to find bank robbery figures as low as those reported in 2011 in the Southland.

The report notes, however, that the pace of bank robberies appears to be picking up in 2012, with about 40 heists reported in the region in the first month of the year.

The region's highest number of bank robberies occurred in 1992, when more than 2,600 were reported.

Of the 287 robberies in 2011, 34 were were takeover-style heists where one or more suspects take employees and customers hostage. Takeovers accounted for nearly 12 percent of all bank robberies last year, a lower percentage than in previous years.

The FBI said the decrease was due to closer cooperation among law enforcement agencies and a more proactive approach by the banking community with the use of additional security measures. Also, the dissemination, through the media, of increasingly clear bank surveillance photos to identify and track down suspects has helped.

Information on the 10 most-wanted bank robbers is available at the website www.labankrobbers.org.