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Suspected 'Cell Phone Bandit' Arrested
In these images taken from a video camera, a woman appears to talk on a cell phone while robbing a bank in Fairfax County, Va.
FBI agents arrested a woman Tuesday who was suspected of robbing four banks in suburban Virginia while appearing to be talking on a cell phone.
Candice R. Martinez, 19, was arrested just before 4 a.m. at a home in nearby Centreville, Va. after an FBI agent spotted a car nearby with license plates they had been searching for.
The FBI had issued a bulletin a few hours earlier saying Martinez and her boyfriend could be heading to Texas, New Mexico or New York, said Debbie Weirman, a spokeswoman from the FBI's Washington Field Office.
"It was a wonderful stroke of luck that (the agent) happened to spot that license plate, and everything unfolded safely and without incident," Weirman told WRC-TV.
Martinez is suspected of robbing four banks in nearby Virginia communities over the past few weeks. Security cameras filmed the suspect walking up to tellers and demanding cash -- all while appearing to be chatting on her cell phone.
FBI Special Agent Ron Chavarro, who spotted the car agents were looking for, ordered two people out of the vehicle and they led investigators to a house nearby where Martinez was staying, Chavarro said.
Her boyfriend had been arrested a little while earlier, authorities said. It was not immediately clear whether charges would be filed against some other people who were with Martinez at the time of her arrest.
Source: AP
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