A man with an extensive arrest record dating to the early 1980s was arrested Thursday, with police calling him the “Itty Bitty Bomb Bandit.”
Louis Gabriel Archuleta, 43, whose six-page litany of crime is mostly for burglary, car theft, drugs and larceny, was arrested about 6 p.m. by officers with the Safe Street Task Force, made up of Denver police, FBI agents and officers from other agencies, said Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson.
Archuleta is a suspect in seven bank robberies or attempted bank robberies in the area over roughly the last month, including one of each on Thursday at the Vectra Bank at 1380 S. Federal Blvd. and the Commercial Federal Bank at 3460 W. 38th Ave., Jackson said.
“On all occasions, he stated he had a device in a box,” Jackson said. He would leave the box at the teller station. In at least one instance, he told the teller she “was going to die.”
Sometimes he fled on a bicycle, sometimes in a vehicle.
Because of his small stature and the nature of the robberies, he was dubbed the Itty Bitty Bomb Bandit, Jackson said.
According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Archuleta is 5 feet 1 and weighs 112 pounds.
He once was sentenced to 16 years in prison and just last August was sentenced to community corrections, according to his arrest record.
Officers from the task force had developed information leading them to Archuleta as the suspect in the robberies and were tailing him Thursday afternoon, Jackson said.
Archuleta’s car stalled in the 4500 block of York Street, and the task force officers took him into custody, he said.
He is being held for federal officials on suspicion of bank robbery, Jackson said.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
