Serial Bank Robber Apprehended in Mickey Mouse Shirt After Summer of Heists, FBI Says

An FBI affidavit claims a serial bank robber in a Mickey Mouse shirt was nabbed in a police chase after perpetrating six robbery attempts in a month-long spree, including two heists at the same bank.

Kevin Heslop allegedly went on a summer bank-robbing blitz that had tellers on edge across South Florida as he hit retail branches from Plantation to Miami, at times brandishing a gun at staff, the FBI says. On July 26, he crashed into a utility pole in Miami Gardens while fleeing police and was found with a loaded Glock 9mm in his glove box and cash fresh from a bank strewn around his getaway car, according to the affidavit.

In an indictment docketed on August 10, a grand jury charged Heslop with robbery and use of a firearm in furtherance of violent crime. He also faces a count for allegedly possessing a gun despite a 2015 bank robbery conviction that made him a felon ineligible to have firearms.

He entered an initial plea of not guilty during his August 11 arraignment.

The FBI affidavit alleges detectives used facial recognition software to help track down Heslop following a June 15 robbery where he made off with $4,800 from a Wells Fargo bank in Hallandale Beach. The bank's surveillance footage of Heslop in an American-flag-studded hat was inputted into the software, which matched the images to Heslop's photo in a state driver's license database, detectives say. Agents went to a Miami address associated with Heslop and began to track his movements but did not immediately arrest him.

Heslop returned to the same bank three weeks later and plundered it again, though he made off with a smaller sum of $610, the FBI says.

In mid-July, he attempted to rob a Chase Bank in Miami, but the teller "did not comply" with his demands, according to the affidavit. Two days later, dressed in green surgical scrubs and a matching emerald beanie, he again walked away empty-handed when a teller at a Broward County Wells Fargo refused to give him money, the affidavit says. The FBI alleges he proceeded to another Wells Fargo branch down the road in Pembroke Pines and made off with $9,600 after lifting his shirt and brandishing a pistol on his waistband at bank staff.

As reports of a serial bank robber circulated around Broward and Miami-Dade counties, detectives suspected Heslop as the culprit and decided to stake him out while he rode around in a silver Jeep owned by a relative, which the FBI says Heslop had been using as his getaway car. On July 26, agents followed Heslop to various branches in Pembroke Pines, including the Wells Fargo (which he had allegedly robbed a few days earlier), a Citibank, and a TD Bank, but he exited the branches without incident.

Later that morning, he rolled up to the Regions Bank in Pembroke Pines and demanded $10,000 from the teller, while sporting a Mickey Mouse shirt and a signature red beanie, according to the affidavit. The teller gave him a smaller sum of cash, which included bait bills used to trace money stolen during robberies.

Officers dropped their cover and tried to pull him over once he left the Regions branch, but he allegedly fled, prompting a police chase that ended when Heslop crashed into a utility pole in Miami Gardens in front of a Church's Chicken. Tactical units swarmed in and forced Heslop out of the car before he was hauled off to an FBI Miami office, where he was fingerprinted, processed, and photographed in his red Mickey Mouse shirt.

Wads of cash were found haphazardly stuffed under a floormat in the vehicle, and in the glove box, officers found a loaded Glock 9mm Model 43x pistol, which had been reported stolen a few weeks earlier in Palm Springs, the FBI says.

The affidavit indicates the string of robberies roped in at least $17,000.

In 2015, Heslop was convicted of holding up the Chase Bank in Miami Gardens, for which he was sentenced to four years in prison.