The Texan, the bank and the BM

Image: Lubbock County Detention Center

The Texan, the bank and the BMW: Robber ‘bank-rolls’ his own getaway car

A man drove a vehicle loaned to him by a car dealership to rob a bank in Texas and tried to use the stolen money as a down payment on a BMW.

The Texan, the bank and the BM

Image: Lubbock County Detention Center

Talk about financing a car! A Texas man, who used a loaned car from a dealership to rob a bank, and then tried to pay for the BMW with the stolen cash, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday 16 March 2021.

Strange but true: Texas bank robbery

In what is quite a bizarre story, he pleaded guilty to the bank robbery that took place in August 2020 and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, the statutory maximum.

According to Insider, Eric Dion Warren from the Lubbock area, drove away while the purchase of the black car was still pending on 7 June 2019. He then entered AimBank in Wolfforth, Texas, approached a teller, and put a fast-food paper bag over his head to disguise himself.

Warren placed a demand note on the bank teller’s counter that read: “This is a f—— robbery. Play with me and die. I want $10 000 (R148 195) in 50 and 100 dollar bills now. You got one minute or I will kill you.” 

It is said that the tellers responded by conceding to Warren’s demands. He headed back to the dealership within 15 minutes of leaving, and offered to use some of the money as a down payment for a car.

Employees at the dealership took the money and started finalizing the purchase when an employee got a phone call about a bank robbery nearby whose getaway vehicle looked suspiciously like the car Warren was about to buy. As one would imagine, the employee called the police.

A simple case

“Warren was arrested on the spot, ” writes Jalopnik. “He had the remaining cash on him and a realistic-looking pellet gun that had been used to facilitate the robbery. And while he went so far as to disguise his face, Warren left fingerprints and DNA on the demand note he gave to the teller. It was a fairly simple case.”