Motorcycle Bandits Ride Into Bank, Rob It

Two men and a bank assistant robbed a Chase bank while on their motorcycle

As far as bank robberies go, this one seems right out of the pages of a John Woo movie.

Two men riding a motorcycle crashed through the back entrance of a West Palm Beach bank Tuesday morning before robbing the bank's vault of cash and then crashing through the front entrance.

But the movie plot gets even more intriguing with this bit of information: the robbery was an inside job.

The FBI said they caught the biker bandits later in the afternoon, and they also arrested the Chase Bank's assistant manager, who happens to be the girlfriend of one of the bank robbers.

Barbara Hauck, 24, confessed to plotting the daring robbery with her boyfriend, 29-year-old Juan Gabriel Mercado and 32-year-old Clifford Davis. All three face federal bank robbery charges.

The incident happened around 10:30 a.m. at the Chase Bank at 7700 S. Dixie Highway. Davis and Mercado drove in through the double doors and allegedly grabbed a hostage, believed to be Hauck, and went for the vault.

The group threw about $140,000 in cash into some book bags and then hopped back on the bikes. Police didn't get a clue Hauck was in on the deal until after watching surveillance tape of her steering the crooks to the drawers with the most dough.

"At first we thought Hauck was the recipient of most of the abuse, but it was obviously staged," West Palm Beach Police Sgt. Patrick Flannery told the Palm Beach Post. "She had no visible injuries."

The biker bandits then crashed into a truck as they tried to escape, but carjacked the woman they had just hit, authorities said.

Authorities have retrieved about $100,00 of the stolen cash.

Contact Us