FBI looking for Black female bank robber who calls herself ‘Freedom Fighter Bandit’
The FBI is still looking for a female bank robber responsible for hitting nine banks in the Atlanta area in the past four months.
According to WSBTV, the bureau suspects Nilsa Marie Urena, 25, of being the so-called “Freedom Fighter Bandit.” According to the FBI, Urena usually hits banks with a male partner, as was the case in the latest bank robbery on Thursday at the Hamilton Bank in Dallas, Georgia.
In addition to the unidentified male, another man reportedly drove a getaway car.
What we know
When Urena hits a bank, she allegedly tells bank tellers that she has a bomb. Then, she explains that she is robbing the bank “for a cause.”
It’s a story that sounds like it was ripped from the heist movie Set it Off, but instead of an all female crew Urena recruits young men as her accomplices.
FBI spokesperson Kevin Rowson said that the bureau believes “she is recruiting these young men on the Internet somehow.”
One of these partners, a 17-year-old, spoke to local station WSBTV about his experience with the bank robber.
“I saw her walking on Candler Road. I wanted to talk to her. I took her to my house. We had sex. She told me she had a bank move. I asked her what it was. She told me how she did it,” he said. “I said, ‘No, I don’t want to be part of it. It sounds too risky.”
Ultimately, he went with Urena and was part of a Douglasville robbery, where he passed the note to the bank teller.
“She told me to give the people the note, but I was scared,” he said.
The 17-year-old was charged as an adult for that bank robbery.
As for Urena herself, Rowson admitted that they had less information on her than they would like.
“We don’t know where she’s from. We don’t know what her ties are to the Atlanta area,” he said.
But, he said, the FBI believes that they can stop the bank robber.
“She is the person we need to get off the streets because when we finally arrest her we believe that these robberies will stop,” he said.
