US criminals using film quality masks during bank robberies
Police in America are investigating the use of film quality masks by criminals trying to obscure their identity.
Conrad Zdzierak, 30, used a £450 ($700) silicon mask in an audacious string of six bank robberies in April Photo: SPLASH NEWS
7:00AM GMT 10 Dec 2010
SPFX Masks in Los Angeles make realistic masks for the film industry.
However, the silicone masks, which use real human hair, have recently been adopted by bank robbers in an attempt to evade arrest.
Last week a Polish immigrant pleaded guilty to using one of the masks to pass himself off as a black character called "The Player" during robberies.
The ruse was so effective that local police arrested an African American for the crimes after witnesses mistakenly picked him out of a line-up, the Independent reports.
"We showed the picture [of the masked perpetrator] to his mother, and even she thought it was him," the detective in charge of the case, Keenan Riordan, told reporters.
In October a Chinese man seeking asylum in Canada used one of the masks to disguise himself as an elderly male as he negotiated airport security in Hong Kong.
Police are now considering whether the elderly "Geezer Bandit", responsible for a string of bank hold ups in California, may in fact be a younger man wearing one of the £760 masks.
SPFX Masks said it was "not proud of the way [the masks] are being used", the paper said.
The masks, which have been on the market for two years, are made by hand with silicone that closely resembles skin.
