Ames Bank Robbery: Iowa Time Machine January 25, 1994

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On January 25, 1994, two masked men walked into FirStar Bank in Ames, Iowa, and set in motion a robbery that would prove to be just one piece of a far more sinister puzzle. The Aryan Republican Army robbed 22 banks in the Midwest from 1994 to 1996, and the group often left fake explosive devices at the banks that they robbed to divert law enforcement officials who could potentially chase them.

The early 1990s witnessed a disturbing rise in far-right extremist activity across America. Groups inspired by The Order, a violent neo-Nazi organization from the 1980s, embraced the strategy of "leaderless resistance" and criminal activity to fund revolutionary ambitions. Peter Langan and Richard Lee Guthrie Jr. founded the Aryan Republican Army in 1992, recruiting members from white supremacist compounds like Elohim City in Oklahoma and through connections with Aryan Nations leaders.

The ARA's robberies were elaborately orchestrated; the group used the 1991 surf film Point Break as a template. Each heist was planned to take less than 90 seconds. The FirstStar Bank robbery in Ames launched what would become the FBI's most intensive hunt for domestic terrorists in the mid-1990s. The college town made an unlikely target, yet fit the ARA's pattern of striking small Midwestern communities where security measures remained less sophisticated than in larger cities. The fake explosive device left behind forced the evacuation of surrounding buildings and tied up law enforcement resources while the robbers fled.

The ARA's eventual capture in 1996 came after Peter Langan engaged in a shootout with Columbus, Ohio, police, while Richard Guthrie was apprehended following a high-speed chase near Cincinnati. Since 2019, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have acknowledged that white supremacists are the leading domestic terrorism threat. #Iowa #OTD #History #BankRobbery #Terrorism