East County Bank

Wells Fargo Bank has reached a settlement with a small Antioch bank after a Wells Fargo employee spread rumors that the other bank was in financial trouble, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported. The employee told about 20 East County Bank customers that their bank was about to go under and invited them to switch to Wells Fargo, a banking source told the newspaper. Spreading false information about a bank is illegal and punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Authorities are searching for a man who committed Simi Valley's first bank robbery of the year Friday and another who held up a Thousand Oaks bank a few hours later. In a third incident Friday, four males fled with an undisclosed amount of cash after holding up a Ventura storage facility. Gary Auer, supervisor of the FBI's Ventura office, said a white man 18 to 26 years old walked into the Wells Fargo Bank at 1200 Los Angeles Ave. in Simi Valley at 1:32 p.m.

Authorities are searching for a man who committed Simi Valley's first bank robbery of the year Friday and another who held up a Thousand Oaks bank a few hours later. In a third incident Friday, four males fled with an undisclosed amount of cash after holding up a Ventura storage facility. Gary Auer, supervisor of the FBI's Ventura office, said a white man 18 to 26 years old walked into the Wells Fargo Bank at 1200 Los Angeles Ave. in Simi Valley at 1:32 p.m.

Wells Fargo Bank has reached a settlement with a small Antioch bank after a Wells Fargo employee spread rumors that the other bank was in financial trouble, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported. The employee told about 20 East County Bank customers that their bank was about to go under and invited them to switch to Wells Fargo, a banking source told the newspaper. Spreading false information about a bank is illegal and punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Ventura County bank robberies have dropped by half in 1993 as holdups in Oxnard and Ventura have plummeted from last year's record highs, the FBI reported Monday. But despite the drop from eight robberies a month to four countywide, authorities reported a disturbing trend in the east county: Bank holdups are up sharply, and out-of-county criminals are apparently to blame.