Andrew Wolfson,Billy Kobin|Louisville Courier Journal
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Thearmored car driver who disappeared last month, reportedly with $850,000, has been charged with theft and awards totaling $60,000 have been offered for information leading to his arrest, Louisville police and the FBI announced Wednesday.
The disclosurecame a few hours after the Courier Journal reported Mark Espinosa, 29, was let go by GardaWorld within five days of his disappearance Dec. 5 from Jefferson Mall.
Authorities had previously declined to say if he was a victim of a theft or the perpetrator.
But Wednesday the FBI said its joint investigation with police determined Espinosa was "directly involved in the theft."
Louisville Metro Police Lt. Steve Kaufling told reporters that Espinosa is "armed and dangerous" and has ties to theNortheast along withfamily members on the West Coast and inTexas and Florida.
The FBI is offering $10,000for information leading to his arrest, while GardaWorld is offering $50,000.Anyone with information is asked to call the FBI at 502-263-6000.
The latest:'Armed and dangerous' Louisville armored car driver wanted by FBI
The Montreal-based armored car company told a city licensing agency in a Dec. 10 email that Espinosa was no longer an employee.
Branch manager Lu Lopez, who wrote the email, declined to tell the Courier Journal why Espinosa was let go, or whether that shows the company concluded he was responsible for the theft.
Isabelle Panelli,aspokeswomanfor GardaWorld, said the company doesn’t comment on personnel matters.
Kaufling on Wednesday declined to say how much was taken from the armored car, butJamesGrimes, theowner of the Radcliff-based Gun School,whichprovides trainingfor armed guards,told the Courier Journal he was toldtheamount lost was$850,000.
In a 911call about the theft, a police dispatchermentions that a secondGarda employee returned from making a drop in the mall tofind Espinosa's gun on the seat.
Grimes said that could meanEspinosa was headed for the airport andknew he couldn’t take his gun through security.
Background: Armored cardriver and cash go missing at Jefferson Mall, police say
Read more: How hard is it to rob an armored truck? Nearly impossible, expert says
Ifthe$850,000 was evenly split among $1, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 bills, it wouldhave weighedabout 60 pounds, according to the Courier Journal’s calculations. The cash would fit ina pair of large duffel bags.
Jim McGuffey, a security consultant and 26-year veteran of the armored car industry, said acommercial jet getawayis plausible.
“The larger the bills, the less it would weigh,” McGuffey said.
Kaufling said investigators have several theories about how Espinosa made his getaway but wouldn't comment on them.
The only previous blemishes on his record were speedingtickets. Family members declined comment and referred questions to the police, although Kaufling said there were cooperating with the investigation.
Espinosa lived with his fatherin a modest brick homein Pleasure Ridge Parkpurchased in 2014 for $46,703. He also has had an address in New Britain, Connecticut, records show.
GardaWorlddeclined to say how much Espinosa was paid or when he started, but according to the Indeed.com job websitethe average starting pay for Garda drivers is$12.46an hour.City records showhe was licensed as an armed guard in September.
RARE CRIME
If Espinosa did take the money and run, he's joined a small fraternity of criminality.
Last year there were only 22 armored car robberies nationwide,according toLowers Risk Group, based in Purcellville, Virginia.Two were in Kentucky.
On Sept. 28, two men ambushedan armored car guard in a shopping center in Newport and fled with $26,000 in cash.
According to the FBI,about 25 to 35 armored trucks and drivers are robbed each year, compared with about 4,000 banks.
Related: A look at the richest and most notable armored car thefts in history
Banks are hit more often because criminals know that armored car robberies are far moredangerous: Unarmed bank tellers are trained to fork over the cash with no questions asked.Armored car couriers are armed and trained to use deadly force —without waiting for the robber to shoot first.
After four of its trucks were robbed —and two guards shot —in Houston in2013,Garda took the unusual step of talking tough publiclyto potentialrobbers.
“We’re letting the bad guys know we’re going to defend ourselves,” Robert Hatchett, the senior manager forGardaWorld’sTexas operations,told the New York Times. “They can expect, in one way or another, to pay with physical injury, harm, possible death. They’re going to pay for it with prosecution, and they’re going to pay for it with restitution. We’re not going to let it go.”
Successful armored car robberies are also infrequent because the vehicles, which weigh up to 25,000 pounds andaremade of hardened steelwithbullet-resistantwindows,are tough to crack.
Tough, but not impossible.
Just last weeknear Bari, Italy, about 280 miles southeast of Rome, a brazen group of submachine-gun-toting robbers used bulldozers and giant diggers to pry open an armored car and make off with the equivalent of $2.3 million.
Perhaps because armored cars are rolling safes that may carry millions of dollars, thefts from them have captured the public imagination since the first one, in 1927, when theFlatheadGang dynamited a truck 7 miles outside of Pittsburgh and made off with $100,000 in cash, the equivalent of $1.4 million today.
Suchheists have been dramatized in movies, including the critically acclaimed but unimaginatively titled “Armored Car Robbery” in 1950.
That same year, in real life, nine armed thieves set the U.S. record for a cashrobbery when they took $2.7 million from a Brink'sdepot in Boston.
They nearly got away with it, but six years later — just five days before thestatute of limitation would haveexpired — one of the robbers,Joseph “Specs” O’Keefe, turned on the rest and testified for thegovernment.
The latest: Stolen cash and a missing trucker still have Louisville police stumped
Successful armored carrobberies are notoriously difficult because they usually happen in broad daylight in public places andoften require a team of professionals. Many are amateurishjobs, like the one in 2016 ataRiteAid Pharmacy at 4000 Taylorsville Road, in whichRoytenBeaudoin, 35, told a courier he had a gun anddemanded money. The courier refused, and police arrested Beaudoinwhile he was trying to break into the armored car.He pleaded guilty to robbery.
But some more sophisticated criminals, who planned for months or even years, have pulled offarmored carheists without paying the price.
Roberto Soliskilledan armored car driverin a 1969 heist and spent 24 years in prison writing critically acclaimed poems and plotting his next crime.
In 1993, Solis had his 21-year-oldgirlfriend, Heather Tallchief, take a job with Loomis Armored Car in Las Vegas. Two month later, on Oct. 21, 1993, she simply drove off with about $3 million while couriers were re-stocking ATMs at theCircusCircusCasino. The truck was found weeks later in a rented storage space, some of the money still in it.
But with Tallchief disguised as an old woman and Solis pushing her in a wheelchair, the couple boarded a chartered jet and flew to Denver. The pilot told authorities they had a couple of large packages with them. Eventually, they went into hiding inAmsterdam.
In 2005, after a low-key life as a single mother and maid in Holland, Tallchief returned to the U.S. and surrendered. She told authorities she left Solis years earlier and had no idea where he was. Sheserved six years in prison.Neither Solis nor the $2.5 million they took to Europehave ever been found.If he’s still alive, he would be 73 years old.
Andrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; awolfson@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @adwolfson. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/andreww.Reach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com or 502-582-7030.
