The FBI Seattle Division is investigating a series of King County bank holdups, in which Issaquah was the most recent target.

On July 13, a male armed with a handgun entered the Issaquah branch of Washington Federal Bank on Rainier Boulevard North. The suspect obtained money by threatening staff and customers with the gun, then escaped with the stolen cash.

The suspect is “described as a white or mixed-race male in his 20s, approximately six feet and very thin,” FBI Seattle Field Office Spokesperson Rob Matuszewski told the Reporter in an email. Law enforcement members are considering the alleged robber “armed and dangerous.”

The FBI believes the suspect to be the same person responsible for three other recent armed robberies at Key Banks in King County: Maple Valley on July 7, Renton on May 31 and Burien on May 4.

In photos from the Renton and Burien heists, the alleged robber can be seen wearing a hooded sweatshirt and gloves, with the bottom half of his face covered by a dark scarf.

The suspect always uses the takeover-style bank robbery reminiscent of Western films, in which a robber threatens everyone in a bank with a gun in order to have cash handed over. The use of a handgun that “we believe is real” makes the suspect unique — and a top priority for investigators, said Mike Mellis, a King County Sheriff’s Office detective working on the FBI’s Safe Streets Task Force. In typical bank robberies in the Puget Sound, Mellis said, the robber simply hands bank tellers a note with a threat, rather than actually brandishing a weapon.

The suspect is also unique because he does not wait for the bank to be empty of customers, and he steals from “as many tellers as he can” before quickly escaping. “He comes in and takes charge,” Mellis said. “He doesn’t care who is there.”

Despite his use of a weapon, the suspect has not harmed anyone in any of the incidents.

Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound is offering a $1,000 reward for any information leading to the capture of the suspect.