Evening star., 1932-04-10
ILLINOIS SCOURGE
OF BANK ROBBERS
Rewards Offered by Bankers
Association Fast Bringing
Satisfactory Results.
BY the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
CHICAGO, April 9.-Once their
happy hunting ground, Illinois is rapidly
becoming the scourge of bank robbers.
Driven to desperation by depredations
of the staggering desperadoes who vic
tin1ized hundreds of its smaller mem
bers, the Illinois Bankers Association
placed head price of $1,000 on all
bank thieves. organized a crack in
vestigating department and launched
into a relentless war, the results of
which are beginning to be felt in the
underworld circles over the entire
Nation.
In the past two weeks alone 20 bank
robberies, II of which were in Illinois
and the others in adjoining States, have
been cleared up and confessions OBJ
tanned duplicating 10 men.
Six Bandits Slain.
Since January l, 1880, 6 bandits
penitentiary, electrocuted for murders
during robberies, electrocuted for slay-
ing two policemen who sought to arrest
him and Is are under indictment await
ing trial.
Illinois is tough on bank robbers and
it's getting tougher" Ros c. Saunders,
head of the Crime Prevention Bureau
of the Illinois Bankers Association, said.
Saunders, former chief of police of
Des Moines, Iowa has spent years hunt
ing down bank robbers. Before becom-
ing associated with the Illinois bankers
in 1925, he spent three years in a
similar capacity in Iowa.
Saunders and his men obtained the
information and set the trap in East
st. Louis that caught the robbers of the
Lincoln (Neb.) National Bank g. Trust
Co., who made away with $2,870,000.
And it was through them, aided by
Chicago's secret six, that Gus Winkler,
henchman of Al Capone, was forced to
disgorge the $583,O0O in negotiable
bonds taken in the Lincoln robbery.
Another Prize Catch.
Another prize catch in which the
Illinois Bankers Association figured was
arrest of the kidnapping robbers" They
were six men who made a speciality of
kidnapping a banker at his home late
at night, forcing him to accompany
them to the bank and there opening the
vaults.
4AC NO4AfASbAO4l vi t4AC 4lltIO kdl1k
was another victory highly priced by
the bankers association. This mob, so
named because its members would carry
a small bottle of nitroglycerin into a
bank and threaten to explode it if they
met with resistance, terrorized Central
Illinois for long time. They are now
In the penitentiary.
In all Of these cases much of the
credit belongs to the police, the sheriff,
or the Illinois State highway police
force. But it is also true that in almost
every case where any of these officials
obtained clues they called in Saunders
and his men because of their wide ex-
perience, and acquaintance with the
appearance and habits Of known bank
robbers.
Robbers ION the Run"
1t is because of this cooperation now
prevalent throughout Illinois, Saunders
says, that bank robbers are "on the
run"
Possessed of a photostatic mind,
Saunders is said by police officials never
to forget bank robbers face once he
sees either the man or his picture This
has been responsible for the identified
ton OF many criminal. Only last week
this remarkable memory led to the
Identification of Donald Lotus, wanted
IN half dozen States for bank robbery.