Manager forced to rob bank after gunmen strap ‘bomb’ to her chest

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Authorities say that two suspects fled with a “decent amount of money” after they forced a bank manager to rob her own bank by strapping what they claimed was a bomb to her chest.

KTLA reported that 32-year-old Aurora Barrera was on her way from Huntington Park home to job a Bank of America branch on Wednesday morning when two African-American men kidnapped her. After strapping an alleged bomb to her body, they threatened to detonate the device unless she drove to her bank and give them money.

According to authorities, Barrera complied and the men drove off with the cash in a white Kia.

The bank alerted the East Los Angeles sheriff’s station to the robbery and officers were on the scene within minutes. An explosives team removed the device, which was later detonated by the bomb squad. The device did not appear to be a working bomb, authorities said.

“We believed based on physical appearance that it could very well be an explosive device, and they very carefully removed that device from her body,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Parker told KTLA.

“It looked like one to everyone involved — her, deputies, bomb squad technicians — but in the rendered safe procedure, they found that it was not an explosive device,” he explained.

Watch this video from KTLA, broadcast Sept. 6, 2012.

(h/t: Gawker)