UK: A man posing as an air conditioning engineer has been sentenced to four years imprisonment for a series of bank burglaries which netted him around £100,000 in cash.
Joe Charles Annerson, a 63-year-old man from North London was at Croydon Crown Court after pleading guilty to six artifice burglary offences at various locations across London and the south-east.
Annerson carried out the offences over a four-month period between May and August 2012 and stole approximately £100,000 in cash from the various banks and building societies. He targeted premises in Brighton, Chelmsford, Croydon, Crouch End and Camden.
On each occasion Annerson would contact staff at the branch, informing them on the phone that air conditioning engineers would be attending later that day. He would then attend the branch, with another - as yet unidentified - accomplice and they would both be let into the secure areas of the branch, with staff believing them to be genuine contractors.
Once inside, they would then look for cash in low-security areas only accessible to staff of the bank, before stealing the cash and leaving. It could then take up to several hours for staff to realise that the cash or items had been stolen.
DC Lewis Sanderson, from Croydon CID, who led the investigation, said: 'This was a sophisticated scam that Annerson was involved with, targeting banks and building societies across the south-east. However, despite the weight of evidence against him, Annerson never admitted to any of the offences during interview with us and has not revealed the identity of his accomplice, who we are still keen to identify and bring to justice.
'The banks affected have taken steps to improve their procedures to prevent this from happening in the future and assisted us fully throughout the investigation.'
Anyone with information about the remaining suspect in this case can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.