An Anchorage man accused of robbing the same credit union twice in two months has been arrested after his family turned him in, according to a charging document.
Etuale Ioane, 20, faces two criminal counts of bank robbery after the July 17 and Aug. 28 incidents at the same Credit Union 1 branch in East Anchorage.
In both robberies, according to the charges, Ioane waited in line and then approached a teller and handed them a note with a threat and demand for cash.
The charges say Ioane made off with more than $2,000 in the July 17 robbery and about $1,300 in the Aug. 28 robbery.
A day after the second robbery, on Tuesday, the FBI released a photo of the suspected robber.
According to the charges, Ioane’s mother contacted the Anchorage Police Department the next day with a tip that the robber was her son, after seeing his photo in local news media reports.
The charges say agents found Ioane in a van with other family members at a local grocery store, and he was wearing some of the same clothing he’d worn in the second robbery. The investigators found more clothes at the family’s home believed to be the same seen in the credit union’s surveillance video, the charges say.
Multiple family members also identified Ioane as the suspect seen in still images from the surveillance video, according to the charges.
Ioane denied robbing the credit union, where he was a member, but admitted that the man in the photos did look like him, the charges say.
Ioane was jailed at the Anchorage Correctional Complex. Court records did not immediately list his attorney.
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here.
