Colorado tops in bank robberies in 2021; some blame fentanyl

DENVER (AP) — A few days before Christmas last year, a man and a woman entered a KeyBank at 2nd Avenue and Broadway in Denver donning COVID masks and caps and passed a note to a bank teller: “Hand me all your money and you will not get hurt.”

The teller, M.N., who said she was terrified, handed over a grip of bills, $1,269, along with a covert GPS tracker. The robbers fled in a dark-colored truck.

Last year in Colorado, that scene, including the threatening note and the relatively small take, happened almost 200 times.

In 2021, Colorado’s FBI field office ranked No. 1 for bank robberies in the country.

Normally, Colorado has between 110 and 120 bank robberies a year. That number dropped to 90 in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns. Last year, though, it spiked to 195 robberies.

“It is a lot,” said Michael Schneider, Denver FBI’s special agent in charge. “These are violent crimes. … These have a significant impact on the people who work in the banks and even the customers.”

In Denver alone, the number of bank robberies jumped from just 19 in 2020 to 65 in 2021.

One Chase branch on East Colfax Avenue was robbed four times in 2021, including twice in two days in October. Another bank, a Huntington Bank branch on South Broadway, has been hit six times since 2018, according to Denver Police.

“Typically, bank robberies are committed by individuals as an act of desperation,” Schneider said.

— Law enforcement place some blame on fentanyl

Law enforcement cite something else that could be behind the despair: fentanyl.

In the last few months of 2021, investigators arrested four alleged bandits who were responsible for more than 40 robberies combined. Three out of four of those suspects told federal officials that...