MANHATTAN — If at first you don’t succeed, rob, rob again.
A bungling bandit batted 0-for-5 in a series of attempted bank robberies across Manhattan Monday, walking away empty-handed from five separate banks in just under three hours, according to police.
The wannabe robber, 38-year-old Alex Garcia, repeatedly tried to demand cash from banks in Midtown, Murray Hill, and the Upper East Side but was rebuffed at each one, according to a police report.
The robberies occurred days after a successful heist, on Dec. 1, when Garcia handed a note to a teller at an Apple Bank at 371 Seventh Ave. near West 31st Street demanding cash, police said. The teller complied and Garcia escaped, police said.
Garcia struck again at 1:45 p.m. on Monday when he strolled into a Valley National Bank at 295 Fifth Ave. between 30th and 31st streets and passed the teller a note demanding money, police said. This time, however the teller refused, and Garcia fled the bank.
Undeterred, Garcia popped up again 15 minutes later at 2 p.m. at a Capital One Bank branch at 470 Park Ave. at East 58th Street, where he once again tried to pass a note demanding cash and once again was turned away empty-handed, according to a police report.
Garcia repeated the robbery attempts three more times, police said.
►At 2:35 p.m. a teller refused his demands at an HSBC bank at 101 Park Ave. between East 40th and East 41st streets.
►At 3:20 p.m. he unsuccessfully passed a robbery note to a teller at a Chase Bank at 1003 Lexington Ave. at East 72nd Street but fled empty-handed.
►Garcia tried to rob a Chase Bank at 244 E. 86th St. at Second Avenue, but once again the teller turned him away.
Garcia, who police described as standing about 5-feet-7-inches tall and weighing about 160 pounds, remains at large, according to a police report.
