The FBI on Tuesday captured a 29-year-old Rockland man who they said robbed banks in Park Ridge, Pomona and elsewhere by claiming to have a bomb, Daily Voice has learned.
Yosef Ziegler was taken into custody in Airmont early Tuesday by a team of law enforcement officers and agents led by the bureau from the jurisdictions where the banks were robbed, official sources said.
Ziegler, of Spring Valley, is accused of making off with what investigators told Daily Voice was $32,000 from an Oritani Bank branch on Kinderkamack Road in Park Ridge this past April after claiming to have a bomb in what looked like a pizza delivery bag.
“He ordered the bank’s tellers to go into the vault area and instructed one teller to put money in the bag,” the FBI said at the time.
He then fled in a vehicle that witnesses said might have been a white minivan.
Four months earlier, authorities said, he held up a Chase Bank branch in the Pacesetter Shopping Center on Route 202 in Pomona while carrying a box that he claimed contained explosives.
The FBI said he “specifically demanded cash secured in the back of the bank,” then “exited through the back with an undisclosed amount of money.”
In the Park Ridge holdup, Ziegler allegedly wore a bicycle helmet with a baseball cap underneath, a gray sweatshirt, black gloves and glasses.
The former Brooklyn resident was also carrying a blue bag that he claimed contained a bomb, authorities said.
