A man and a couple caught on camera taking £920 from a woman’s bag at a bank at Barking in east London are being sought by police.
CCTV footage released today from a security camera at the NatWest branch in East Street shows three suspects police want to trace.
The footage records a 46-year-old woman being joined in the queue at 12 noon September 16 by another woman who starts a conversation.
A man behind is seen bending down and taking an envelope from her bag before he and the other two leave the bank.
“This was a devious theft,” Pc Matthew Trenfield-Brown said. “The woman appears to have been targeted and fallen victim to a planned ‘distraction’ theft with three people seemingly working together. We want to identify these three.”
Police are appealing for anyone who was in the NatWest branch in East Street on September 16 to contact them.
They want to trace an Asian woman in the queue in her 20s with long straight brown hair who was wearing a grey ‘beanie’ hat, grey top, grey tracksuit trousers and black shoes.
One of the men they want to find is described as east European in appearance, in his 30s, with short black hair and a short beard, who was wearing a cream-coloured T-shirt, blue jeans and blue trainers with white soles.
The second man is Asian, in his 30s, with receding short dark hair, wearing a black baseball cap, dark body-warmer, grey tracksuit trousers and white trainers.
Witnesses are being urged to call the Met’s East Area Command on 101 or Tweet @MetCC, or anonymously contact Crimestoppers on 0800-555111 (crimestoppers-uk.org).
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