One suspect arrested in Sycamore armored car heist
SYCAMORE IL. March 27 2019 – Police said they have arrested one of the people who made off with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in a daylight armored car burglary in June.
Brandon Moore, 29, of Chicago, was indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of bank theft earlier this month, according to a news release sent Monday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. He could face up to 10 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000 or twice the gross gain of the theft, whichever is less, according to the release.
On Friday, FBI agents and Sycamore police, including detective Sgt. Jeff Wig and detectives Jim Stehlin and John Keacher, went to Bedford Park to arrest Moore at a railroad facility, with help from CSX Railroad police.
Sycamore detectives worked with federal investigators for months to find suspects in the burglary, which occurred around 9:40 a.m. June 28 in the parking lot of Charley’s Video Gaming, 1470 S. Peace Road. Moore is in federal custody, officials said. Police had been watching his movements for some time, Wig said.
At least two other people are thought to have been involved, and the investigation remains “very active,” Wig said. It proved a complex case to unravel.
“There’s just a mountain of information to go through,” Wig said. “You’ve got people to go through, and then from there you’ve got to start looking at everything else, whether it’s phone activity, vehicles, stuff like that. You’re just inundated with information at first.”
Federal prosecutors allege Moore was one of a group that stole containers filled with cash from a Thillens armored car while it was parked in front of Charley’s. Video from a nearby camera showed two men loading the money into a silver Ford Edge SUV about 9:40 a.m. that day. Shortly after, police said they made their getaway, driving off through the parking lot of the Blain’s Farm and Fleet store nearby.
At the time, local police mounted an organized search for the vehicle, setting up a perimeter around the industrial park on Prairie Drive in Sycamore, but the thieves evaded them. The way the crime was committed suggested that the group had scouted the vehicle’s route before they donned ski masks and made their move.
“That Thillens truck had just left Heartland Bank,” Wig said. “It had made several stops that morning, some of which were at banks, so there was bank money involved.”
Moore faces a federal charge because there were bank funds stolen, which are federally insured, Wig said.
Wig declined to comment on whether police had recovered any of the stolen money, or if someone working for the armored car company had assisted them.
Daily Chronicle
