Thief who tricked his way into banks to steal cash jailed for four years (From Croydon Guardian)

Thief Joe Annerson who tricked his way into Croydon banks to steal cash jailed for four years

5:14pm Wednesday 6th March 2013 in News By Chris Baynes, Reporter

A conman who stole thousands of pounds from a string of banks by posing as an air conditioning engineer has been jailed for four years.

Joe Charles Annerson, 63, pocketed around £100,000 in stolen cash between May and August last year by tricking his way into banks and building societies across the south of England, including in Croydon.

Annerson, of Islington, pulled off the same scam at each branch, ringing staff to tell them air conditioning contractors would be attending later in the day.

Bank employees would then let Annerson and an as-yet-unidentified accomplice into secure areas of their branch, believing them to be genuine engineers.

Annerson and his fellow burglar would then hunt for cash to pocket before leaving. 

Detectives in Croydon were alerted to the scam and Annerson targeted branches of Natwest and Nationwide in the borough.

He was arrested on August 24 last year after police used CCTV footage to link him to multiple burglaries.

He pleaded guilty to six counts of burglary at Croydon Crown Court on Friday March 1 and was sentenced to four years behind bars.

DC Lewis Sanderson, from Croydon CID, said: "This was a sophisticated scam that Annerson was involved with, targeting banks and building societies across the south-east.

"However, despite the weight of evidence against him, Annerson never admitted to any of the offences during interview with us and has not revealed the identity of his accomplice, who we are still keen to identify and bring to justice.

"The banks affected have taken steps to improve their procedures to prevent this from happening in the future and assisted us fully throughout the investigation."

Anyone with information about the second burglar can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.