The man authorities claim has terrorized banks across New England since September of last year was arrested Thursday morning in Connecticut on a federal warrant.
Taylor Dziczek, 30, of Chicopee, appeared in federal court in Hartford, Conn., following his arrest, where U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert A. Richardson ordered him detained.
An affidavit filed in his case and unsealed Thursday afternoon stated that he would tell bank tellers, “Give me all the money,” and “Don’t be a hero” before making off with money.
This isn’t Dziczek’s first rob-eo.
He was convicted in 2017 of the unarmed robbery of the Easthampton Savings Bank in South Hadley in 2015. In that robbery, he wore the hood of a gray sweatshirt and a black mask or scarf covering his face and paid particular attention to keeping his right hand covered, according to a summary of that incident detailed in an affidavit filed in the current case.
In that one, he made off with $5,700 — which was just a warm up for the string of robberies he’s allegedly been committing, which add up to $137,388, according to a table of the robberies filed in the case.
The arrest in Hartford came about from a federal warrant out of Connecticut — the state he hit the hardest, with seven of the alleged 14 robberies, and one attempted robbery, he has been linked to in a string stretching from September 2021 through August of this year taking place there.
For these cases, the FBI named him the “Route 91 Bandit” because his alleged crimes roughly followed that highway. The list of banks and credit unions Dziczek is alleged to have held up show only two that stray too far from that highway, which are the seventh and 14th robberies, in Athol and Nashua, N.H., respectively.
Between the 12th and 13th heists — Franklin First Credit Union in Greenfield on Jan. 21 and People’s United Bank in Plainville, Conn on May 26. — the FBI had had enough. The Special Agent in Charge of the Boston FBI office, Joseph Bonavolonta, said “We need to put a stop to this man’s crime spree before someone gets hurt” and the agency issued a $100,000 bounty, the Herald reported in February.
Along with that offer, the FBI created posters with his surveillance camera photos depicting a man between 5-foot-6 and 5-foot-8 of “medium build,” with blue eyes and light hair. He wore COVID masks over the bottom of his face and the upper part of his face was shadowed from ballcaps and sweatshirt hoods.
The affidavit filed in this case noted that he seemed to pay particular attention to hiding the back of his right hand, just like in the 2015 robbery. And new photos contained in these court docs, with Dziczek unmasked, show why: the man has extensive tattoos on his right arm, with a particularly ornate circular detail on his right hand.
Heist timeline
- Sept. 9, 2021: Arrha Credit Union in West Springfield: $5,000
- Sept. 20, 2021: American Eagle Credit Union, Enfield, Conn.: $7,950
- Oct. 4, 2021: People’s United Bank, Brattleboro, Vt.: $11,000
- Oct. 15, 2021: Webster Bank, East Windsor, Conn.: $2,402
- Oct. 21, 2021: People’s United Bank, Brattleboro, Vt.: $0 (attempt)
- Oct. 22, 2021: Webster Bank, Somers, Conn.: $8,353
- Nov. 5, 2021: Workers Credit Union, Athol: $10,400
- Nov. 19, 2021: Liberty Bank, Avon, Conn.: $2,279
- Nov. 20, 2021: Savings Bank of Walpole, Keene, N.H.: $7,000
- Dec. 16, 2021: Greenfield Cooperative Bank, Turner Falls: $5,990
- Jan. 6: Key Bank, East Windsor, Conn.: $1,880
- Jan. 21: Franklin First Credit Union, Greenfield: $2,800
- May 26: People’s United Bank, Plainville, Conn.: $7,085
- June 3: TD Bank, Nashua, N.H.: $53,120
- Aug. 17, 2022: Liberty Bank, Meriden, Conn.: $12,129
Total: $137,388
