A Florida man’s trip to Canada was cut short after he was arrested for using Uber to rob a bank in Des Moines, Iowa, and then carjacking the driver.
Police said Javier Rafael Camacho-Cepeda, of Bradenton, Florida Right took an Uber ride to a Chase Bank for a “quick withdrawal” and asked the driver to wait outside. Right after the robbery, Camacho-Cepeda pulled a gun on the Uber driver, stole the car, and then headed north on I-35, local ABC station KCRG 9 News reports.
Camacho-Cepeda was arrested near the Canadian border around 6 p.m. Wednesday night by the Lake County Minnesota Sheriff’s Office. He was charged with two counts of Robbery in the 1st Degree, the station reported, citing the police affidavit. Nobody was hurt during the robbery, police said.
Stealing the Uber in the first place was a key piece of evidence that helped authorities track his route.
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“We were able to gather some information at the bank and then couple that with some information from the Uber driver to figure out very quickly who our suspect was,” said Sergeant Paul Parizek with the Des Moines Police Department. “We’ve got some technology resources available to us and then just some good investigative skills and they were able to determine he was heading to the US-Canadian border.”
Parizek added that the Uber driver did not know his passenger just robbed Chase Bank.
“The only thing that makes this unique is that, you know, he took the Uber there, and he took the Uber away. According to the Uber driver, there wasn’t a lot of indication that anything had gone wrong while he was in the bank,” Parizek said.
It is not known how much money Camacho-Cepeda robbed from the bank.
