On July 28, 2024, a woman walked into a Princeton bank four minutes before closing and slid a note to a teller that demanded $30,000 cash. She then pulled what the teller thought was a gun from her pants pocket, police said.
The teller showed that their cash drawer was empty, so the robber ordered two employees into the vault, where they handed her $60,500, authorities said.
The woman didn’t bring a bag, so she left the bank on Route 206 carrying the stacks of cash in plain view, authorities said.
A police detective arrested a suspect in September.
The heist was unique in several ways.
First, women have committed under 10% of bank robberies nationally since 2003. In 2023, it was about 8%, FBI statistics show.
Second, the average bank robbery take has been below $10,000 for years, and was just over $4,000 in 2019, the latest year the FBI published the average.
Also, the gun was not a firearm. The suspect later told police it was toy water pistol she’d spray-painted black.
The most interesting occurrence, though, was the crime itself.
It just doesn’t happen much anymore.
New Jersey had just 18 bank robberies in 2023, a 90% plummet from 194 in 2008, FBI stats over the past 20 years show.
The 15-year downward slide mirrors a national drop. In the past two decades, bank robberies are down 83% nationwide, from 7,556 in 2004 to 1,263 in 2023.
It’s also happening in the bank robbery capital of the country: California.
In 2003, the state had 1,153 bank robberies. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, the entire state has logged fewer than 200 heists each year, with a low of 172 in 2022.
“This is a remarkable decrease” said Robert McCrie, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He’s been studying bank crime statistics for over 50 years.
The numbers he sees, McCrie said, are “amazing.”
A few things have led to the drop, he said.
Nationwide, there are fewer bank buildings. In 2008, over 82,000 bank branches dotted the map. In 2023, it dipped below 70,000, federal records show.
Second, McCrie says potential bank robbers now know the potential haul is much lower than it used to be because of better security.
The National Criminal Justice Association says bank robberies averaged about $9,600 stolen in the early 2000s, and the average dipped to around $7,500 around 2013, before the FBI said in 2019 it was down to $4,000.
“And then there are those cameras that are everywhere,” McCrie said.
It’s not just inside and around the bank, but public security and surveillance cameras too. And that also has seeped into the criminal conscience, he says.
McCrie said he’s seen pictures of bank robbers on media sites that are really clear. “And this leads to apprehension,” he said.
That’s what occurred in Princeton, according to authorities.
The suspect wore a light blue hat with a white logo, red glasses, a medical mask, and police published bank security camera pictures on their Facebook page, which several media outlets then reported.
Not long after, authorities received an anonymous tip that named the suspect, a Montgomery resident. The tipster also described her tattoos.
Princeton Police Detective Daniel Chitren quickly found the suspect on social media, wearing similar glasses, and put her under surveillance in early September, he wrote in court documents.
He saw her tattoos in person, and they matched from the bank footage, the documents allege.
Chitren had another layer of technology in the case too.
A license plate reader recorded the suspect’s vehicle driving toward the bank branch 14 minutes before the robbery, and driving the opposite direction three minutes after she walked out of the bank.
Chitren arrested the suspect, Ciara Brascom, of Montgomery, on Sept. 24, 2024. Her case is pending in federal court.
Another theory for the bank robbery plunge is a general shift to cashless payment systems. In 2022, Denmark had no bank robberies and just one in 2021, down from over 200 two decades ago. An expert cited the increase in surveillance cameras and a reduced use of cash as reasons.
The National Criminal Justice Association also offers the theory that rising internet retail sales has led to the dramatic drop in bank robberies in the United States because people are not using as much cash.
Either way, McCrie said he often hears speculation that bank robbers, aware of current risks, are simply moving to convenience stores and other businesses known to carry cash.
“But I haven’t really seen [any evidence] that they’re switching up,” he said.
Robberies overall are also down significantly in the country in the past 20 years, FBI crime statistics show.
McCrie said this is the type of crime that if certain actions are suppressed, “The crime doesn’t occur anymore.”
Stories by Kevin Shea
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Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com